A Waterlogged Town by Francis Hopkinson Smith

He was backed up against the Column of the Lion, holding at bay a horde of gondoliers who were shrieking, "Gondola! Gondola! " as only Venetian gondoliers can. He had a half-defiant look, like a cornered stag, as he stood there protecting a small wizen-faced woman of an uncertain age, dressed in a long gray silk duster and pigeon-winged hat -- one of those hats that looked as if the pigeon had alighted on it and exploded.

"No, durn ye, I don't want no gon-_do_-la; I got one somewhere round here if I can find it."

If his tall gaunt frame, black chin whisker, and clearly defined features had not located him instantly in my mind, his dialect would have done so.

"You'll probably find your gondola at the next landing," I said, pointing to the steps.

He looked at me kindly, took the woman by the arm, as if she had been under arrest, and marched her to the spot indicated.

In another moment I felt a touch on my shoulder. "Neighbor, ain't you from the U. S. A.?"

I nodded my head.

"Shake! It's God's own land! " and he disappeared in the throng.

The next morning I was taking my coffee in the cafe at the Britannia, when I caught a pair of black eyes peering over a cup, at a table opposite. Then six feet and an inch or two of raw untilled American rose in the air, picked up his plates, cup, and saucer, and, crossing the room, hooked out a chair with his left foot from my table, and sat down.

"You're the painter feller that helped me out of a hole yesterday? Yes, I knowed it; I see you come in to dinner last night. Eliza-beth said it was you, but you was so almighty rigged up in that swallow-tailed coat of yourn I didn't catch on for a minute, but Eliza-beth said she was dead sure."

"The lady with you -- your wife?"

"Not to any alarming extent, young man. Never had one -- she's my sister -- only one I got; and this summer she took it into her head -- you don't mind my setting here, do you? I'm so durned lonesome among these jabbering Greeks I'm nearly froze stiff. Thank ye! -- took it into her head she'd come over here, and of course I had to bring her. You ain't never traveled around, perhaps, with a young girl of fifty-five, with her head crammed full of hifalutin' notions, -- convents and early masters and Mont Blancs and Bon Marches, -- with just enough French to make a muddle of everything she wants to get. Well, that's Eliza-beth.

First it was a circulating library, at Unionville, back of Troy, where I live; then come a course of lectures twice a week on old Edinburgh and the Alps and German cities; and then, to cap all, there come a cuss with magic-lantern slides of 'most every old ruin in Europe, and half our women were crazy to get away from home, and Eliza-beth worse than any of 'em; and so I got a couple of Cook's tickets out and back, and here we are; and I don't mind saying," and a wicked, vindictive look filled his eyes, "that of all the cussed holes I ever got into in my life, this here Venice takes -- the -- cake. Here, John Henry, bring me another cup of coffee; this's stone-cold. P. D. Q., now! Don't let me have to build a fire under you. " This to a waiter speaking every language but English.

"Do not the palaces interest you? " I asked inquiringly, in my effort to broaden his views.

"Palaces be durned! Excuse my French. Palaces! A lot of caved-in old rookeries; with everybody living on the second floor because the first one's so damp ye'd get your die-and-never-get-over-it if you lived in the basement, and the top floors so leaky that you go to bed under an umbrella; and they all braced up with iron clamps to keep 'em from falling into the canal, and not a square inch on any one of 'em clean enough to dry a shirt on! What kind of holes are they for decent -- -- Now see here," laying his hand confidingly on my shoulder, "just answer me one question -- you seem like a level-headed young man, and ought to give it to me straight. Been here all summer, ain't you?"

"Yes."

"Been coming years, ain't you?"

I nodded my head.

"Well, now, I want it straight," -- and he lowered his voice, -- "what does a sensible man find in an old waterlogged town like this?"

I gave him the customary answer: the glories of her past; the picturesque life of the lagoons; the beauty of her palaces, churches, and gardens; the luxurious gondolas, etc., etc.