We prefer being our own masters; to take a fare or leave it as we please." "Your boat is a very fast one.

You went at a tremendous rate when the galley was after us the other night." "The boat is like others," Giuseppi said carelessly; "but most men can row fast when the alternative is ten ducats one way or a prison the other." "Then there would be no place where I could always find you in the daytime if I wanted you ?" "No, signor; there would be no saying where we might be.

We have sometimes regular customers, and it would not pay us to disappoint them, even if you paid us five times the ordinary fare.

But we could always meet you at night anywhere, when you choose to appoint." "But how can I appoint," the passenger said irritably, "if I don't know where to find you ?" Giuseppi was silent for a stroke or two.
"If your excellency would write in figures, half past ten or eleven, or whatever time we should meet you, just at the base of the column of the palace--the corner one on the Piazzetta--we should be sure to be there sometime or other during the day, and would look for it." "You can read and write, then ?" the passenger asked.
"I cannot do that, signor," Giuseppi said, "but I can make out figures.
That is necessary to us, as how else could we keep time with our customers?
We can read the sundials, as everyone else can; but as to reading and writing, that is not for poor lads like us." The stranger was satisfied.

Certainly every one could read the sundials; and the gondoliers would, as they said, understand his figures if he wrote them.
"Very well," he said.