He never makes a mistake.
Sometimes we go flying down the great canals at such a gait that we can get only the merest glimpses into front doors, and again, in obscure alleys in the suburbs, we put on a solemnity suited to the silence, the mildew, the stagnant waters, the clinging weeds, the deserted houses and the general lifelessness of the place, and move to the spirit of grave meditation.
The gondolier is a picturesque rascal for all he wears no satin harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken tights.

His attitude is stately; he is lithe and supple; all his movements are full of grace.

When his long canoe, and his fine figure, towering from its high perch on the stern, are cut against the evening sky, they make a picture that is very novel and striking to a foreign eye.
We sit in the cushioned carriage-body of a cabin, with the curtains drawn, and smoke, or read, or look out upon the passing boats, the houses, the bridges, the people, and enjoy ourselves much more than we could in a buggy jolting over our cobble-stone pavements at home.

This is the gentlest, pleasantest locomotion we have ever known.
But it seems queer--ever so queer--to see a boat doing duty as a private carriage.

We see business men come to the front door, step into a gondola, instead of a street car, and go off down town to the counting-room.
We see visiting young ladies stand on the stoop, and laugh, and kiss good-bye, and flirt their fans and say "Come soon--now do--you've been just as mean as ever you can be--mother's dying to see you--and we've moved into the new house, O such a love of a place!--so convenient to the post office and the church, and the Young Men's Christian Association; and we do have such fishing, and such carrying on, and such swimming-matches in the back yard--Oh, you must come--no distance at all, and if you go down through by St.Mark's and the Bridge of Sighs, and cut through the alley and come up by the church of Santa Maria dei Frari, and into the Grand Canal, there isn't a bit of current--now do come, Sally Maria--by-bye!" and then the little humbug trips down the steps, jumps into the gondola, says, under her breath, "Disagreeable old thing, I hope she won't!" goes skimming away, round the corner; and the other girl slams the street door and says, "Well, that infliction's over, any way, -- but I suppose I've got to go and see her--tiresome stuck-up thing!" Human nature appears to be just the same, all over the world.