in' round this uneek city Josiah said the most he thought on
wuz of tellin' Deacon Henzy and Uncle Sime Bentley about what he see
there. And shadowy idees seemed to fill his mind about tryin' to turn
the Jonesville creek through the streets and goin' from our house to
Thomas Jefferson's in a gondola.

Arvilly said she would gin anything to canvas some of them old Doges
for the "Twin Crimes". But I told her I guessed they didn't need to
learn anything about crime, and she gin up they didn't.

The first thing Miss Meechim wanted to see wuz the church of St. Mark,
so we all set off one day to see it. San Marco, as they call it, is
one of the most interestin' churches to visitors on the Continent. It
wuz begun way back in the tenth century, and it has been in process of
building ever since, and I don't know how long they lay out to keep at
it. They have spent thirty millions on it, so I hearn, and the news
come pretty straight to me, and I d'no but they'll spend as much agin
before they git through. But when you see all its magnificent
sculpture, columns, statutes, mosaic work, ornaments of every kind,
its grand arches, its five domes and spires and all the exquisite work
on it I d'no as I'd took the job for any less, and so I told Josiah.

But he kep' up his old idee he had voiced in many a similar spot, that
it wuz done by day's works and the workmen didn't hurry, and that it
would have been cheaper to had it done by the job. But how could they,
dribblin' along as they did ten hunderd years?

The four horses over the main entrance are very noted. They are said
to have been carved way, way back by Augustus to celebrate a triumph
over Antony and to have passed through the hands of Nero, Constantine
and Napoleon. Napoleon, a greedy creeter always, took 'em to Paris,
but had to bring 'em back.

For horses that are so old and have been driv round and showed off by
so many conquerors, they look pretty sound and hearty. But Josiah
didn't like their looks nigh so well as he duz the mair's, and sez he,
"That off one looks balky."

But I sez, "Distance lends enchantment; the mair can't begin with
'em."

The altar piece is said to have cost three million. It is of gold and
silver, and full of precious stuns. It was made in Constantinople a
thousand years ago, and has got inscriptions on it that I presoom read
well if anybody could read 'em. But I couldn't nor Josiah. But Robert
Strong read some on 'em to Dorothy, for I heard