ondolier, and
said: "Now, Garibaldi, you go inside the pup tent with Hennery, and let
me punt this ark around awhile."

Garibaldi thought dad was crazy, but he gave up the pole, and just then,
when they were both on the extreme point of the gondola, and she was
wabbling some, I peeked out through the curtains and thought the fruit
was about ripe enough to pick, so I threw myself over to one side of
the gondola, and, by gosh, if dad and Garibaldi didn't both go overboard
with a splash, and one yell in the English language, and one in
Eye-talian, and I rushed out of the cabin and such a sight you never
saw.

[Illustration: Overboard, one yell in the English language, one in
Eye-talian 193]

Dad retained the paddle, and had his head out of water, but nothing
showed above the water, where Garibaldi was except a red patch on his
black pants. Dad was yelling for help, and finally the gondolier got his
head out of the water, and said something that sounded like grinding a
butcher knife on a grindstone, and I yelled, too, and the gondolas began
to gather around us, and the two men were rescued. The gondolier had
been gondoling all his life and he had never been in the water before,
and they thought it would strike in and kill him, so they wrapped him up
in blankets and put him aboard his canoe, and he looked at me as though
I was to blame. They got a boat hook fastened in dad's pants and landed
him in the gondola, and he dripped all the way to our hotel, and he
smelled like a fish market.

I asked Garibaldi, on the way to the hotel, if he was counting his beads
when he was down under the water with nothing but his pants out of the
water, and he said: "You're dam right," but I don't think he knew the
meaning of the words, because he probably wouldn't swear in the presence
of death. Dad just sat and shivered all the way to the hotel, but when
we got to our room I asked him what his idea was in jumping overboard
right there before folks, with his best clothes on, and he said it was
all Garibaldi's fault, that just as dad was getting a good grip on the
paddle, the gondolier heaved a long sigh, and the onions in his breath
paralyzed dad so he fell overboard.

[Illustration: Then you don't blame your little boy, do you 197]

"Then you don't blame your little boy, do you?" says I, and dad looked
at me as he was hanging his wet shirt on a chair. "Course not; you
were asleep in the cabin. But say, if I ever hear that you did tip