SCENE--_On the Lagoons. CULCHARD and PODBURY's gondola is
nearing Venice. The apricot-tinted diaper on the façade of
the Ducal Palace is already distinguishable, and behind its
battlements the pearl-grey summits of the domes of St. Mark's
shimmer in the warm air. CULCHARD and PODBURY have hardly
exchanged a sentence as yet. The former has just left off
lugubriously whistling as much as he can remember of "Che
faro," the latter is still humming "The Dead March in Saul,"
although in a livelier manner than at first._

_Culch._ Well, my dear PODBURY, our--er--expedition has turned out
rather disastrously!

_Podb._ (_suspending the Dead March, chokily_). Not much mistake about
_that_--but there, it's no good talking about it. Jolly that brown and
yellow sail looks on the fruit-barge there. See?

[Illustration: "Reads with a gradually lengthening countenance."]

_Culch._ (_sardonically_). Isn't it a little late in the day to be
cultivating an eye for colour? I was about to say that those two
girls have treated us infamously. I say deliberately, my dear PODBURY,
_infamously_!

_Podb._ Now drop it, CULCHARD, do you hear? I won't hear a word
against either of them. It serves us jolly well right for not knowing
our own minds better--though I no more dreamed that old BOB would--Oh,
hang it, I can't talk about it yet!

_Culch._ That's childishness, my dear fellow; you _ought_ to talk