“I guess so.” Cynthia was slightly careless about that. Funny of Chick, not like him to make such a fuss over some silly little souvenir he’d bought. “Come on,” she put a hand on his arm, “let’s go sight-see for a while.”
Somewhat reluctantly Chick agreed. Over tiny crooked stone bridges they went, along quays along whose mossy sides the water lapped dark and mysterious, down blind, colorful alleys where small children stuck their heads from windows and yelled shrilly. “Non passaggio ... no passage!” Cynthia adored it all, adored being with Chick again.
If he only wouldn’t fuss so, she thought. For he kept looking at his watch, glancing back over his shoulder, until finally she gave it up in despair. No use of sightseeing till Chick recovered his lost property.
“How about going back now and having another try at your gondolier?” she suggested.
He was so grateful that she was almost ashamed of her impatience, and they turned back immediately. But there was no further news; Luigi had not returned. Desperately Chick started to ask questions, perhaps one of the other gondoliers had heard Luigi speak of a package he had found?
Cynthia, first on one foot and then on the other, for she was getting a little tired, translated to the best of her ability. Chick stuck in a word now and then.
“Perdita. ... Lost ... lost.” Was Chick’s gender wrong, or had he really mislaid a blonde?
But a few in the group of gondoliers got the idea. Apparently each one had, at one time or another discovered something perdita. From beneath the flea-infested blanket of a gondola was produced a dogs-eared magazine. Cynthia beginning to be amused read the lurid title in flaming vermilion sprawled across its cover. “True Tales of the Wild West.” The date was over a year ago but it had been, undoubtedly, once lost.
Other gondoliers left their bobbing craft, passers-by drew closer as Chick’s eagerness held promise of rich reward. Waving the magazine aside he chanted impatiently, “Piccolo ... piccolo,” while he made gestures of small measurement with his hands. Then aside to Cynthia, “that does mean ‘little,’ doesn’t it? Not a musical instrument?”
Cynthia nodded silently, not daring to risk speech and watched with dancing eyes while Chick refused, from a second cheerful brigand a musty, torn golash.