e he got
one straight drink of the genuine article, unadulterated and drawn
from the wood."

"You must not make fun of a poetic legend, Larry. You have to believe
everything over here or you do not get the worth of your money," said
John Manning.

"Well, I don't know," was Larry's reply; "I don't know just what to
believe. I was talking about it last night at Florian's, while you
were writing letters home."

"I did not know Mr. Laughton had friends in Venice."

"Oh, I can make friends anywhere. And this one was lots of fun. He was
a priest, an _abbate_, I think he calls himself. He had read five
newspapers in the _caffe_ and paid for one tiny cup of coffee. When I
finished the _Debats_ I passed it to him for his sixth--and he spoke
to me in French, and I wasn't going to let an Italian talk French to
me without answering back, so I just sailed in and began to swap
stories with him."

"No doubt you gave him much valuable information."

"Well, I did; I just exuded information. Why, the first thing he said,
when I told him I was an American, was to wonder whether I hadn't met
his brother, who was also in America--in Rio Janeiro--just as if Rio
was the other side of the North River!"

John Manning smiled at Larry's disgusted expression, and asked, "What
has this _abbate_ to do with the fragile Venetian glass?"

"Only this," answered Larry. "I told him two or three North-westers,
just as well as I could in French, and then he said that marvellous
things were also done here once upon a time. And he told me about the
glass which broke when poison was poured into it."

"It is a pleasant superstition," said John Manning. "I think Poe makes
use of it, and I believe Shakespeare refers to it."

"But did either Poe or Shakespeare say anything about the two goblets
just alike made for the twin brothers Manin nearly four hundred years
ago? Did they tell you how one glass was shivered by poison and its
owner killed, and how the other brother had to flee for his life? Did
they inform you that the unbroken goblet exists to this day, and is
in fact now for sale by an Hebrew Jew who peddles antiquities? Did
they tell you that?"

"Neither Edgar Allan Poe nor William Shakespeare ever disturbs my
slumbers by telling me anything of the sort," laughed Manning.

"Well, my _abbate_ told me just that, and he gave me the address of
the Shylock who has the surviving goblet for sale."

"Suppose we go there and see it," suggested Manni