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"
"Because I knew thou couldst do better. See where thou standest to-day!
It is not a little thing to be a governor of the Nicolotti!"
"It is a truth," Piero confessed, "upside down, and not to boast of,
for whoever tries it would wish it less. The bancali are 'like asses who
carry wine and drink water,' for the good of the clouts, in days like
these."
"I heard them talking to-day, Piero. The _barcarioli tosi_ are worse
than Turks; one must pay, to suit their whim, in the middle of the Canal
Grande, or one may wait long for the landing! And there was a scandal
about a friar of San Zanipolo, of whom they had asked a fare for the
crossing; I know not the truth of it! And at Santa Sofia the great cross
with the beautiful golden lustre is gone, and one says it is the
'tosi.'"
Piero winced, for, to an ancient "toso," or even to a "bancalo" of
to-day, such enormities had not the exciting novelty that might have
been expected, and Marina had a curious habit of seeming entirely to
forget his past when she wished to exact his best of him.


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