likeness to my friend Vereschagin the painter; his broad, white forehead,
finely wrought features, clear, honest, penetrating eye, flowing mustache
and beard streaked with gray,--all strongly suggestive of that
distinguished Russian. I love Vereschagin, and so, unconsciously, and by
mental association, perhaps, I was drawn to this stranger. Seeing my eye
fixed constantly upon him, he threw off his shawl, and crossed the room.

"Pardon me, but your story about the Barbarozzi brought to my mind so many
delightful recollections that I cannot help thanking you. I know that old
palace,--knew it thirty years ago,--and I know that cortile, and although
I have not had the good fortune to run across either your gondolier,
Espero, or his sweetheart, Mariana, I have known a dozen others as
romantic and delightful. The air is stifling here. Shall we have our
coffee outside on the deck?"

When we were seated, he continued, "And so you are going to Venice to
paint?"

"Yes; and you?"

"Me? Oh, to the Engadine to rest. American life is so exhausting that I
must have these three months of quiet to make the other nine possible."

The talk drifted into the many curious adventures befalling a man in his
journeyings up and down the world, most of them suggested by the queer
stories of the night. When coffee had been served, he lighted another
cigar, held the match until it burned itself out,--the yellow flame
lighting up his handsome face,--looked out over the broad expanse of
tranquil sea, with its great highway of silver leading up to the full
moon dominating the night, and said as if in deep thought:--