“I know them!  I know them!” returned the fisherman; “they are led away by their pride, and they think ill of one who cannot share in their vanities.  But, friend unknown, I have brought with me a face, which, old though it be, and wrinkled, and worn by the weather like the stones of the sea-shore, is uncovered to the eye, and without shame.”

“There may be reasons which thou knowest not, why I wear a mask.  But if my face be hid the limbs are bare, and thou seest there is no lack of sinews to make good that which I have undertaken.  Thou should’st have thought better of the matter ere thou puttest thyself in the way of so much mortification.  Defeat will not cause the people to treat thee more tenderly.”

“If my sinews are old and stiffened, Signor Mask, they are long used to toil.  As to shame, if it is a shame to be below the rest of mankind in fortune, it will not now come for the first time.  A heavy sorrow hath befallen me, and this race may lighten the burden of grief.  I shall not pretend that I hear this laughter, and all these scornful speeches, as one listens to the evening breeze on the Lagunes—­for a man is still a man, though he lives with the humblest, and eats of the coarsest.  But let it pass, Sant’ Antonio will give me heart to bear it.”

“Thou hast a stout mind, fisherman, and I would gladly pray my patron to grant thee a stronger arm, but that I have much need of this victory myself.  Wilt thou be content with the second prize, if, by any manner of skill, I might aid thy efforts? for, I suppose, the metal of the third is as little to thy taste as it is to my own.”

“Nay, I count not on gold or silver.”

“Can the honor of such a struggle awaken the pride of one like thee?”

The old man looked earnestly at his companion, but he shook his head without answer.  Fresh merriment, at his expense, caused him to bend his face towards the scoffers, and he perceived they were just then passing a numerous group of his fellows of the Lagunes, who seemed to feel that his unjustifiable ambition reflected, in some degree, on the honor of their whole body.

“How now, old Antonio!” shouted the boldest of the band, “is it not enough that thou hast won the honors of the net, but thou would’st have a golden oar at thy neck?”

“We shall yet see him of the senate!” cried a second.

“He standeth in need of the horned bonnet for his naked head,” continued a third.  “We shall see the brave Admiral Antonio sailing in the Bucentaur, with the nobles of the land!”

Their sallies were succeeded by coarse laughter.  Even the fair in the balconies were not uninfluenced by these constant jibes, and the apparent discrepancy between the condition and the means of so unusual a pretender to the honors of the regatta.  The purpose of the old man wavered, but he seemed goaded by some inward incentive that still enabled him to maintain his ground.  His companion closely watched the varying expression of a countenance that was far too little trained in deception to conceal the feelings within; and, as they approached the place of starting, he again spoke.