procured in that peculiar way. In our day it would be
immoral to go on the highway to get bricks for a church,
but it was no sin in the old times. St. Mark's was itself
the victim of a curious robbery once. The thing is set
down in the history of Venice, but it might be smuggled
into the Arabian Nights and not seem out of place
there:

Nearly four hundred and fifty years ago, a Candian
named Stammato, in the suite of a prince of the house
of Este, was allowed to view the riches of St. Mark's.
His sinful eye was dazzled and he hid himself behind
an altar, with an evil purpose in his heart, but a priest
discovered him and turned him out. Afterward he got
in again--by false keys, this time. He went there,
night after night, and worked hard and patiently, all alone,
overcoming difficulty after difficulty with his toil,
and at last succeeded in removing a great brick of the marble
paneling which walled the lower part of the treasury;
this block he fixed so that he could take it out and put
it in at will. After that, for weeks, he spent all
his midnights in his magnificent mine, inspecting it
in security, gloating over its marvels at his leisure,
and always slipping back to his obscure lodgings before dawn,
with a duke's ransom under his cloak. He did not need
to grab, haphazard, and run--there was no hurry.
He could make deliberate and well-considered selections;
he could consult his esthetic tastes. One comprehends
how undisturbed he was, and how safe from any danger
of interruption, when it is stated that he even carried off