"If I went with you, you would not lose your time," he said.

"Don't talk about Venice to our Doge," put in the fiddle, "or you will
start him off, and he has stowed away a couple of bottles as it is
--has the prince!"

"Come, strike up, Daddy Canard!" added the flageolet, and the three
began to play. But while they executed the four figures of a square
dance, the Venetian was scenting my thoughts; he guessed the great
interest I felt in him. The dreary, dispirited look died out of his
face, some mysterious hope brightened his features and slid like a
blue flame over his wrinkles. He smiled and wiped his brow, that
fearless, terrible brow of his, and at length grew gay like a man
mounted on his hobby.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Eighty-two."

"How long have you been blind?"

"For very nearly fifty years," he said, and there was that in his tone
which told me that his regret was for something more than his lost
sight, for great power of which he had been robbed.

"Then why do they call you 'the Doge'?" I asked.

"Oh, it is a joke. I am a Venetian noble, and I might have been a doge
like any one else."