over the boat as if it were a senator stepping on a fly."

"So much for little fish coming into deep water."

"The honest fellow was crossing the Giudecca, with a stranger, who had
occasion to say his prayers at the Redentore, when the brig hit him in
the canopy, and broke up the gondola, as if it had been a bubble left by
the Bucentaur."

"The padrone should have been too generous to complain of Pietro's
clumsiness, since it met with its own punishment."

"Madre di Dio! He went to sea that hour, or he might be feeding the
fishes of the Lagunes! There is not a gondolier in Venice who did not
feel the wrong at his heart; and we know how to obtain justice for an
insult, as well as our masters."

"Well, a gondola is mortal, as well as a felucca, and both have their
time; better die by the prow of a brig than fall into the gripe of a
Turk. How is thy young master, Gino; and is he likely to obtain his
claims of the senate?"

"He cools himself in the Giudecca in the morning; and if thou would'st
know what he does at evening, thou hast only to look among the nobles in
the Broglio."

As the gondolier spoke he glanced an eye aside at a group of patrician
rank, who paced the gloomy arcades which supported the superior walls of
the doge's palace, a spot sacred, at times, to the uses of the
privileged.