And now here was his wish taking shape before him, as the
distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes across the
morning sea!
The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony's governor and bear-leader, was just
putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon on
Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.'s anchor rattled
overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one
plunge with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from
his lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument
in suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical
foreign city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many
Moslem idolators, to the important fact of Mr. Mounce's summing up
his conclusions before the Muse of Theology took flight? He should
be happy, he said, if the tide served, to visit Venice with Mr.
Bracknell the next morning.
The next morning, ha!--Tony murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," winked
at the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat
down with a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at
his next deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah's
gig.
A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world
of the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and
bubbling with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed
in fantastic painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as
fantastic: a bawling, laughing, jostling, sweating mob,
parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and sputtering under the
hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire.
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