He folded the two sheets of his letter and tied them with a silk string, of which he squeezed the knot into pasty red wax, which he worked with his fingers, and upon this he pressed the iron seal of the guild, using both his hands and standing up in order to add his weight to the pressure.  The missive was destined for the Podesta of Murano, which is to say, for the Governor, who was a patrician of Venice and a most high and mighty personage.  Giovanni did not mean to trust to any messenger.  That very afternoon, when he had slept after dinner, and the sun was low, he would have himself rowed to the Governor’s house, and he would deliver the letter himself, or if possible he would see the dignitary and explain even more fully that Zorzi, called the Ballarin, was a liar, a thief and an assassin.  He felt a good deal of pride in what he had written so carefully, and he was sure that his case was strong.  In another day or two, Zorzi would be gone for ever from Murano, Giovanni would have the precious manuscript in his possession, and when old Beroviero returned Giovanni would use the book as a weapon against his father, who would be furiously angry to find his favourite assistant gone.  It was all very well planned, he thought, and was sure to succeed.  He would even take possession of the beautiful red glass, and of the still more wonderful white glass which Zorzi had made for himself.  By the help of the book, he should soon be able to produce the same in his own furnaces.  The vision of a golden future opened before him.  He would outdo all the other glass-makers in every market, from Paris to Palermo, from distant England to Egyptian Alexandria, wheresoever the vast trade of Venice carried those huge bales of delicate glass, carefully packed in the dried seaweed of the lagoons.  Gold would follow gold, and his wealth would increase, till it became greater than that of any patrician in Venice.  Who could tell but that, in time, the great exception might be made for him, and he might be admitted to sit in the Grand Council, he and his heirs for ever, just as if he had been born a real patrician and not merely a member of the half-noble caste of glass-blowers?  Such things were surely possible.

In the cooler hours of the afternoon he got into his father’s gondola, for he was far too economical to keep one of his own, and he had himself rowed to the house of the Governor, on the Grand Canal of Murano.  But at the door he was told that the official was in Venice and would not return till the following day.  The liveried porter was not sure where he might be found, but he often went to the palace of the Contarini, who were his near relations.  The Signor Giovanni, to whom the porter was monstrously civil, might give himself the fatigue of being taken there in his gondola.  In any case it would be easy to find the Governor.  He would perhaps be on the Grand Canal in Venice at the hour when all the patricians were taking the air.  It was very probable indeed.