A Foregone Conclusion | Page 5

English ecclesiastic
who sojourned some months in Venice, last year, for his health, and
who used to read with me and teach me the pronunciation. He was from
Dublin, this ecclesiastic."
"Oh!" said Mr. Ferris, with relief, "I see;" and he perceived that what
had puzzled him in Don Ippolito's English was a fine brogue
superimposed upon his Italian accent.
"For some time I have had this idea of going to America, and I thought
that the first thing to do was to equip myself with the language."

"Um!" said Mr. Ferris, "that was practical, at any rate," and he mused
awhile. By and by he continued, more kindly than he had yet spoken, "I
wish I could ask you to sit down again: but I have an engagement
which I must make haste to keep. Are you going out through the campo?
Pray wait a minute, and I will walk with you."
Mr. Ferris went into another room, through the open door of which Don
Ippolito saw the paraphernalia of a painter's studio: an easel with a
half-finished picture on it; a chair with a palette and brushes, and
crushed and twisted tubes of colors; a lay figure in one corner; on the
walls scraps of stamped leather, rags of tapestry, desultory sketches on
paper.
Mr. Ferris came out again, brushing his hat.
"The Signor Console amuses himself with painting, I see," said Don
Ippolito courteously.
"Not at all," replied Mr. Ferris, putting on his gloves; "I am a painter by
profession, and I amuse myself with consuling;" [Footnote: Since these
words of Mr. Ferris were first printed, I have been told that a more
eminent painter, namely Rubens, made very much the same reply to
very much the same remark, when Spanish Ambassador in England.
"The Ambassador of His Catholic Majesty, I see, amuses himself by
painting sometimes," said a visitor who found him at his easel. "I
amuse myself by playing the ambassador sometimes," answered
Rubens. In spite of the similarity of the speeches, I let that of Mr. Ferris
stand, for I am satisfied that he did not know how unhandsomely
Rubens had taken the words out of his mouth.] and as so open a matter
needed no explanation, he said no more about it. Nor is it quite
necessary to tell how, as he was one day painting in New York, it
occurred to him to make use of a Congressional friend, and ask for
some Italian consulate, he did not care which. That of Venice happened
to be vacant: the income was a few hundred dollars; as no one else
wanted it, no question was made of Mr. Ferris's fitness for the post, and
he presently found himself possessed of a commission requesting the
Emperor of Austria to permit him to enjoy and exercise the office of
consul of the ports of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, to which the
President of the United States appointed him from a special trust in his
abilities and integrity. He proceeded at once to his post of duty, called
upon the ship's chandler with whom they had been left, for the consular

archives, and began to paint some Venetian subjects.
He and Don Ippolito quitted the Consulate together, leaving Marina to
digest with her noonday porridge the wonder that he should be walking
amicably forth with a priest. The same spectacle was presented to the
gaze of the campo, where they paused in friendly converse, and were
seen to part with many politenesses by the doctors of the neighborhood,
lounging away their leisure, as the Venetian fashion is, at the local
pharmacy.
The apothecary craned forward over his counter, and peered through
the open door. "What is that blessed Consul of America doing with a
priest?"
"The Consul of America with a priest?" demanded a grave old man, a
physician with a beautiful silvery beard, and a most reverend and
senatorial presence, but one of the worst tongues in Venice. "Oh!" he
added, with a laugh, after scrutiny of the two through his glasses, "it's
that crack-brain Don Ippolito Rondinelli. He isn't priest enough to hurt
the consul. Perhaps he's been selling him a perpetual motion for the use
of his government, which needs something of the kind just now. Or
maybe he's been posing to him for a picture. He would make a very
pretty Joseph, give him Potiphar's wife in the background," said the
doctor, who if not maligned would have needed much more to make a
Joseph of him.

II
Mr. Ferris took his way through the devious footways where the
shadow was chill, and through the broad campos where the sun was
tenderly warm, and the towers of the church rose against the speck-less
azure of the vernal heaven. As he went along, he frowned in