The Story of Glass | Page 9

to stop for them at all. I want to go and stay until
noon. May I?"
"Well, let me think a second, little girl," replied Uncle Bob. "I am
afraid I must run over to the bankers' directly after breakfast, so I won't
be able to start right away; I can, however, take you later." Then as he
saw Jean's face fall he added, "You and Hannah may go early if you
like and come back for me at eleven. How will that do?"
"It will do beautifully only I wish you could be with us. How shall we
know how to get a boatman, or tell him where to take us? I am sure I
couldn't, and Hannah's Italian is not very good, although," with a
mischievous smile, "I suppose she could use her dictionary."
"I will arrange everything with a gondolier before I leave for the
bankers'," Uncle Bob answered. "Now I must be running along.
Suppose the gondola is here at half-past nine."
"The earlier the better," cried Jean.
Promptly at the hour set the gondola glided up to the steps of the Grand
Canal Hotel where Jean and Hannah were waiting. It was an unusually
beautiful gondola, with scarlet curtains and a gilded prow carved in the
shape of a woman's head.
Jean sprang forward, all eagerness, her eyes on the magic apparition.

Then suddenly her foot slipped on the slime left by the tide on the
marble step, and she would have fallen into the water had not a young
boy, with rare presence of mind, leaped forward and caught her.
Another moment and Hannah, white with fright, had the girl in her
arms.
"Oh, my dear child!" she wailed. "My precious lamb! Thank goodness,
you are safe. Think if you'd been drowned before you had had a chance
to see Venice at all! But you are quite safe now, honey. Don't be
frightened. Young man," and she turned to the boy, "that was a good
deed of yours. What is your name? But there--how silly to be asking
him when he can't understand a word I'm saying. I forgot no one could
understand anything in this queer, upside-down town where the streets
are water when they ought to be land."
To her utter astonishment, however, the boy answered in English,
which, although slightly broken, was perfectly intelligible.
"My name is Giusippe Cicone."
"Say it again," demanded Hannah. "Say it more slowly."
"Giusippe Cicone."
"Giusippe," echoed Hannah, "Giusippe Cicone. There! Giusippe
Cicone. I got it better that time. Giusippe Cicone. Now I have it! Well,
Master Giusippe Cicone, it was very good of you to save this little lady
from a ducking in your canal which, if I may be permitted to say so, is
not as clean as it might be. We are very much obliged to you, and here
is some money to pay you for being so quick."
The boy shook his head.
"I could not take money for saving the señorita from the water,"
protested he proudly. "I was glad to do it. I could not take pay."
"Well, I thank you very much," Jean ventured shyly.

He helped Hannah and the girl into the waiting gondola and then stood
on the steps shading his eyes with his brown hand as the gondolier
made his way to the oar.
"Perhaps you can tell us where we can find you if we should want to
see you again," called Hannah as the distance between them widened.
"Certainly. I am at Murano." He pointed across the lagoon to a distant
island.
"Murano?"
"Yes, I work there. Every one knows me at the glass works."
[Illustration: "EVERY ONE KNOWS ME AT THE GLASS WORKS"]
He waved his hand and was soon lost to sight.
"I do wonder who he is," speculated Jean, who had now quite
recovered from her fright and could smile at the memory of the episode.
"And how strange that he understood English!"
"I don't call it strange," Hannah responded. "English is the only
sensible language, and probably this boy realizes it. I think it speaks
well for his discrimination."
"Anyway, he was a gentleman not to take the money; and yet he looked
poor," reflected the girl.
"One may be a gentleman despite poverty, thank goodness," Hannah
said. "Your uncle will probably insist upon hunting him up and
thanking him. I can't see, Jean, how you came to slip that way. Wasn't
the boatman holding on to you?" and for the tenth time every detail of
the disaster had to be gone over.
"Well, all I can say is that if anything had happened to you I never
should have dared show my face to your Uncle Bob. And think of your
Uncle Tom at home--he would have things to say! They