It was great fun to watch the pigeons, and especially to watch the little children feed them. Babies of two or three years would timidly throw a grain of corn, and then run squealing away from the commotion it produced.
“Let’s go and see something,” said Patty, when their corn was all gone and she had grown tired of sitting still.
“All right, but don’t go far. Shall it be the Cathedral or the Doge’s Palace?”
“The Palace. I want to go into those horrible dungeons once more before I leave Venice.”
So they loitered slowly through the rooms of the Palace, and then crossed the Bridge of Sighs.
“I always smile when I cross this bridge,” said Patty, “because the poor old bridge has had so many weeping people cross it, that I’m sure it’s glad of the change.”
“Of course it is. We ought to stand here and grin for a week, to make up for the groans and wails with which these poor old walls must be saturated. But I say, Patty, here’s a small party of tourists with a guide. Let’s join them to go through the dungeons.”
As visitors were not allowed in the prisons without being officially conducted, this was a good plan, and once again Patty made the tour of the dark, dismal holes, where prisoners were confined, tortured, and put to death.
“Ugh!” said Floyd, as they at last came out into the sunlight again, “how can you want to see those horrors, when you can look at this instead!”