"Yes, comrade, but he will not be the first old fellow who has taken a young wife in his dotage. Have you never heard that he has a young ward, beautiful as an angel, whom he keeps cooped up as tenderly as a brooding dove in his tumble-down old house on the Canal Orfano? Nobody but himself has ever set eyes on her to my knowledge."
"There you're mistaken, Stefano," said a young man, who had not hitherto spoken. He was a fine, dashing, handsome young fellow of twenty-six, in a holiday suit of crimson and gold, with a fiery eye, long, curling locks, and a mustache as black as jet.
"Let's hear what Antonio Giraldo has to say about the matter!" cried his companions.
"Simply this," said the young man. "I have seen the imprisoned fair one—the peerless Zanetta—for such is her name. She is lovely as the day; and for her voice—why—Corpo di Bacco! La Gianina, the prima donna, is a screechowl to my nightingale."
"Your nightingale! Bravo!" cried Stefano, in a tone of mocking irony. "What can you know about her voice?"
"Simply this, Master Stefano," replied the young gondolier. "When floating beneath her window in my gondola, I have addressed her in such rude strains of melody as I best knew how to frame. She has replied in tones so liquid and pure that the angels might have listened."
"By Heaven! the fellow's in love!" cried Stefano.
"Long live music and love!" cried Antonio. "What were life worth without them?"
"You're in excellent spirits!" cried Stefano.
"And why shouldn't a man be, on his wedding day?"