Merrihew solemnly directed the porter to paste the scarlet labels on his cases. He was beginning to take a certain blasé pride in his luggage. Already it had the appearance of having traveled widely. It would look well on week-end trips at home.
At seven that evening they stepped out of the station in Venice. The blue twilight of Venice, that curves down from the hollow heavens, softening a bit of ugliness here, accentuating a bit of loveliness there; that mysterious, incomparable blue which is without match or equivalent, and which flattens all perspective and gives to each scene the look of a separate canvas! Here Merrihew found one of his dreams come true, and his first vision of the Grand Canal, with its gondolas and barges and queer little bobtailed skiffs, was never to leave him. What impressed him most was the sense of peace and quiet. No one seemed in a hurry, for hurry carries with it the suggestion of noise and turmoil. Hillard hunted for his old gondolier, but could not find him. So he chose one Achille whose ferrule was bright and who carried the number 154. With their trunks, which they had picked up at Genoa, and small luggage in the hotel barge, they had the gondola all to themselves.
Instead of following the Grand Canal, Achille took the short cut through the Ruga di San Giovanni and the Rio di San Polo. It was early moonlight, and as they glided silently past the ancient marble church in the Campo San Polo the fairy-like beauty of it caught Merrihew by the throat.
"This is the happy hunting grounds," he said. "This beats all the cab-riding I ever heard of. And this is Venice!" He patted Hillard on the shoulder. "I am grateful to you, Jack. If you hadn't positively dragged me into it, I should have gone on grubbing, gone on thinking that I knew something about beauty. Venice!" He extended his arms as a Muezzin does when he calls to prayer. "Venice! The shade of Napoleon, of Othello, of Portia, of Petrarch!"
Hillard smiled indulgently. "I love your enthusiasm, Dan. So long as a man has that, the rest doesn't matter."
Out into the Grand Canal again, and another short cut by the way of the Rio del Baccaroli. As they swept under the last bridge before coming out into the hotel district, Hillard espied a beggar leaning over the parapet. The faint light of the moon shone full in his face.
"Stop!" cried Hillard to Achille, who swung down powerfully on his blade. Hillard stood up excitedly.
The beggar took to his heels, and when Hillard stepped out of the gondola and gained the bridge, the beggar had disappeared.
"Who was it?" asked Merrihew indifferently.
"Giovanni!"