permit him to enjoy and exercise the office of consul of the ports of
the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, to which the President of the United
States appointed him from a special trust in his abilities and
integrity. He proceeded at once to his post of duty, called upon the
ship's chandler with whom they had been left, for the consular
archives, and began to paint some Venetian subjects.

He and Don Ippolito quitted the Consulate together, leaving Marina to
digest with her noonday porridge the wonder that he should be walking
amicably forth with a priest. The same spectacle was presented to the
gaze of the campo, where they paused in friendly converse, and were
seen to part with many politenesses by the doctors of the neighborhood,
lounging away their leisure, as the Venetian fashion is, at the local
pharmacy.

The apothecary craned forward over his counter, and peered through the
open door. "What is that blessed Consul of America doing with a
priest?"

"The Consul of America with a priest?" demanded a grave old man, a
physician with a beautiful silvery beard, and a most reverend and
senatorial presence, but one of the worst tongues in Venice. "Oh!" he
added, with a laugh, after scrutiny of the two through his glasses,
"it's that crack-brain Don Ippolito Rondinelli. He isn't priest enough
to hurt the consul. Perhaps he's been selling him a perpetual motion
for the use of his government, which needs something of the kind just
now. Or maybe he's been posing to him for a picture. He would make a
very pretty Joseph, give him Potiphar's wife in the background," said
the doctor, who if not maligned would have needed much more to make a
Joseph of him.