No
one was up but the sun, who did as he liked with the facades and the
bridges in the water, and made strange lovelinesses in narrow darkling
places, and showed us things in the _calli_ that we did not know were in
the world. The Senator was really depressing until he gradually
lightened his spirits by working out a scheme for a direct line of
steamships between Venice and New York, to be based on an agreement with
the Venetian municipality as to garments of legitimate gaiety for the
gondoliers, the re-nomination of an annual Doge, who should be compelled
to wear his robes whenever he went out of doors, and the yearly
resurrection of the ancient ceremony of marrying Venice to the Adriatic,
during the months of July and August, when the tide of tourist traffic
sets across the Atlantic. "We should get every school ma'am in the
Union, to begin with," said poppa confidently, and by the time we
reached Verona he had floated the company, launched the first ship,
arrived in Venice with full orchestral accompaniment, and dined the
imitation Doge--if he couldn't get Umberto and Crispi--upon clam chowder
and canvas-backs to the solemn strains of Hail Columbia played up and
down the Grand Canal.
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