quarrelsome, or self-complacent and patronizing, as the quality of the
silken sashes which displayed the color of their house was heavier or
poorer than their own.

One boasts of the lantern, all of brass, "Wrought by Messer Alessandro
Leopardi--'come no c'è altro!'--there is no other like it--which he, the
favored gondolier, has been burnishing for the banquet of the Dandolo,
to which he shall that night convey the noble lady of the Giustiniani!"

"It is less beautiful," retorts a gondolier of the house of Mocenigo,
the fringes of his sash of rose sweeping the bridge of his gondola as it
moves forward, slightly tilting on its side, with a quick, disdainful
motion called forth by proper Mocenigo pride--so pliant are these barks
of Venice to the moods of the gondolier. "It is less beautiful--by the
Holy Madonna of San Castello!--than the lantern of wrought iron with the
jewels of _rubino_ that Messer Girolamo Magagnati makes this day, by
order of the Eccellentissimo Andrea Mocenigo, with the jewels of the
fine glass of Murano that shall be like roses flashing in the night!"

And he has sworn so great an oath, by that most ancient Madonna of
Castello, and so well has he vindicated the honor and splendor of his
house in thus early appropriating this recent glory of Venetian
workmanship in its own family emblem, that there is no present need of
distance between him and his rival, and resting upon his oar, as he
stands with a proud and graceful bearing of victory, he allows the
gondola to glide back into position with the lapping of the water.

For the gondoliers of the house of Giustiniani are unfolding, with
quick, ringing, jubilant voices, vast confidential tales of the fêtes
that are in preparation for the marriage of the young noble of the