row fast when the alternative is ten ducats one way or a prison the
other."

"Then there would be no place where I could always find you in the
daytime if I wanted you?"

"No, signor; there would be no saying where we might be. We have
sometimes regular customers, and it would not pay us to disappoint
them, even if you paid us five times the ordinary fare. But we could
always meet you at night anywhere, when you choose to appoint."

"But how can I appoint," the passenger said irritably, "if I don't know
where to find you?"

Giuseppi was silent for a stroke or two.

"If your excellency would write in figures, half past ten or eleven, or
whatever time we should meet you, just at the base of the column of the
palace--the corner one on the Piazzetta--we should be sure to be there
sometime or other during the day, and would look for it."

"You can read and write, then?" the passenger asked.

"I cannot do that, signor," Giuseppi said, "but I can make out figures.
That is necessary to us, as how else could we keep time with our
customers? We can read the sundials, as everyone else can; but as to
reading and writing, that is not for poor lads like us."

The stranger was satisfied. Certainly every one could read the
sundials; and the gondoliers would, as they said, understand his