“I am quite of your opinion,” said Zorzi, halting at the entrance to the garden.

“Then why did you not kick him into the canal?” inquired the porter, with admirable logic.

“Do I look as if I could kick anything?” asked Zorzi, laughing and glancing at his lame foot.

“And where should I have been?” inquired Pasquale indignantly.  “Asleep, perhaps?  If you had said ‘kick,’ I would have kicked.  Perhaps I am a statue!”

Zorzi pointed out that it was not usual to answer invitations in that way, even when declining them.

“And who knows what sort of invitation it was?” retorted the old porter discontentedly.  “Since when have you friends in Venice who bid you come to their houses at night, like a thief?  Honest men, who are friends, say ’Come and eat with me at noon, for to-day we have this, or this’—­say, a roast sucking pig, or tripe with garlic.  And perhaps you go; and when you have eaten and drunk and it is the cool of the afternoon, you come home.  That is what Christians do.  Who are they that meet at night?  They are thieves, or conspirators, or dice-players, or all three.”

Pasquale happened to have been right in two guesses out of three, and Zorzi thought it better to say nothing.  There was no fear that the surly old man would tell any one of the message; he had proved himself too good a friend to Zorzi to do anything which could possibly bring him into trouble, and Zorzi was willing to let him think what he pleased, rather than run the smallest risk of betraying the society of which he had been obliged to become a member.  But he was curious to know why Contarini kept such a singularly unprepossessing servant, and why, if he chose to keep him, he made use of him to deliver invitations.  The fellow had the look of a born criminal; he was just such a man as Zorzi had thought of when he had jestingly proposed to Giovanni to hire a murderer.  Indeed, the more Zorzi thought of his face, the more he was inclined to doubt that the man came from Contarini at all.

But in this he was mistaken.  The message was genuine, and moreover, so far as Contarini and the society were concerned, the man was perfectly trustworthy.  Possibly there were reasons why Contarini chose to employ him, and also why the servant was so consistently faithful to his master.  After all, Zorzi reflected, he was certainly ignorant of the fact that the noble young idlers who met at the house of the Agnus Dei were playing at conspiracy and revolution.

But that night, when Contarini’s friends were assembled and had counted their members, some one asked what had become of the Murano glass-blower, and whether he was not going to attend their meetings in future; and Contarini answered that Zorzi had hurt his foot and was on crutches, and sent a greeting to the guests.  Most of them were glad that he was not there, for he was not of their own order, and his presence caused a certain restraint in their talk.  Besides, he was poor, and did not play at dice.