"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.
"Don't see it," he broke out before I had half finished. "As for the gon-do-las, you're dead right, and no mistake. First time I settled on one of them cushions I felt just as if I'd settled in a basket of kittens; but as for palaces! Why, the State House at Al-ba-ny knocks 'em cold; and as for gardens! Lord! when I think of mine at home all chock-full of hollyhocks and sunflowers and morning-glories, and then think what a first-class cast-iron idiot I am wandering around here"—— He gazed abstractedly at the ceiling for a moment as if the thought overpowered him, and then went on, "I've got a stock-farm six miles from Unionville, where I've got some three-year-olds can trot in 2.23—Gardens!"—suddenly remembering his first train of thought,—"they simply ain't in it. And as for ler-goons! We've got a river sailing along in front of Troy that mayn't be so wide, but it's a durned sight safer and longer, and there ain't a gallon of water in it that ain't as sweet as a daisy; and that's what you can't say of these streaks of mud around here, that smell like a dumping-ground." Here he rose from his chair, his voice filling the room, the words dropping slowly: "I—ain't—got—no—use—for—a—place—where—there—ain't—a—horse —in—the—town,—and every—cellar—is—half—full—of—water."
A few mornings after, I was stepping into my gondola when I caught sight of the man from Troy sitting in a gondola surrounded by his trunks. His face expressed supreme content, illumined by a sort of grim humor, as if some master effort of his life had been rewarded with more than usual success. Eliza-beth was tucked away on "the basket of kittens," half hidden by the linen curtains.
"Off?" I said inquiringly.
"You bet!"
"Which way?"
"Paris, and then a bee-line for New York."
"But you are an hour too early for your train."
He held his finger to his lips and knitted his eyebrows.