arm. Thy native hills have their soft as well as their hard ground, but
it is said the Tunisian chooses a board knotty as his own heart, when he
amuses himself with the wailings of a Christian."

"Well, the happiest of us all must take such as fortune brings. If my
soles are to be shod with blows, the honest priest of Sant' Agata will
be cheated by a penitent. I have bargained with the good curato, that
all such accidental calamities shall go in the general account of
penance. But how fares the world of Venice?--and what dost thou among
the canals at this season, to keep the flowers of thy jacket from
wilting?"

"To-day, as yesterday, and to-morrow will be as to-day I row the
gondola from the Rialto to the Giudecca; from San Giorgio to San Marco;
from San Marco to the Lido, and from the Lido home. There are no
Tunis-men by the way, to chill the heart or warm the feet."

"Enough of friendship. And is there nothing stirring in the
republic?--no young noble drowned, nor any Jew hanged?"

"Nothing of that much interest--except the calamity which befell Pietro.
Thou rememberest Pietrello? he who crossed into Dalmatia with thee once,
as a supernumerary, the time he was suspected of having aided the young
Frenchman in running away with a senator's daughter?"

"Do I remember the last famine? The rogue did nothing but eat maccaroni,
and swallow the lachryma christi, which the Dalmatian count had on
freight."

"Poverino! His gondola has been run down by an Ancona-man, who passed