gratuity will do much with honest Baptiste, should there not be a question
of the stability of the breeze, in which case he might be somewhat of a
loser."

"You say the truth, noble Melchior," put in the patron; "were the wind
ahead, or were it two hours earlier in the morning, the little delay
should not cost the strangers a batz--that is to say, nothing
unreasonable; but as it is, I have not twenty minutes more to lose, evep
were all the city magistrates cloaking to be of the party, in their proper
and worshipful persons."

"I greatly regret, Sigriore, it should be so," resumed the baron, turning
to the applicant with the consideration of one accustomed to season his
refusals by a gracious manner; "but these watermen have their secret
signs, by which, it would seem, they know the latest moment they may with
prudence delay."

"By the mass! Marcelli, I will try him a little--should have known him in
a carnival dress. Signor Barone, we are but poor Italian gentlemen, it is
true, of Genoa. You have heard of our republic, beyond question--the poor
state of Genoa?"

"Though of no great pretensions to letters, Signore," answered Melchior,
smiling, "I am not quite ignorant that such a state exists. You could not
have named a city on the shores of your Mediterranean that would sooner
warm my heart than this very town of which you speak. Many of my happiest
hours were passed within its walls, and often, even at this late day, do I
live over again my life to recall the pleasures of that merry period. Were
there leisure, I could repeat a list of honorable and much esteemed names
that are familiar to your ears, in proof of what I say."