“As for you, you will soon learn the ways of trade, and will be able to come home and join me, and eventually succeed me in the business.

“No fairer prospect could well open to a young man, and if you show yourself as keen in business, as you have been energetic in the pursuits you have adopted, assuredly a great future is open to you, and you may look to be one of the greatest merchants in the city of London.  I know not yet what offers Polani may make you here, but I hope that you will not settle in Venice permanently, but will always remember that you are an Englishman, and the son of a London citizen, and that you will never lose your love for your native land.

“And yet, do not hurry home for my sake.  Your two brothers will soon have finished their schooling, and will, of course, be apprenticed to me as soon as I return; and if, as I hope, they turn out steady and industrious; they will, by the time they come to man’s estate, be of great assistance to me in the business.

“And now, you will be wanting to say goodbye to your friends.  Be careful this last evening, for it is just when you are thinking most of other matters, that sudden misfortune is likely to come upon you.”

Delighted with his good fortune—­rather because it opened up a life of activity, instead of the confinement to business that he had dreaded, than for the pecuniary advantages it offered—­Francis ran downstairs and, leaping into his father’s gondola, told Beppo to take him to the Palazzo Giustiniani.  On the way he told Beppo and his son that the next day he was leaving Venice, and was going to enter the service of Signor Polani.

Giuseppi ceased rowing, and, throwing himself down at the bottom of the gondola, began to sob violently, with the abandonment to his emotions common to his race.  Then he suddenly sat up.

“If you are going, I will go too, Messer Francisco.  You will want a servant who will be faithful to you.  I will ask the padrone to let me go with you.

“You will let me go, will you not, father?  I cannot leave our young master, and should pine away, were I obliged to stop here to work a gondola; while he may be wanting my help, for Messer Francisco is sure to get into adventures and dangers.  Has he not done it here in Venice? and is he not sure to do it at sea, where there are Genoese and pirates, and perils of all kinds?

“You will take me with you, will you not, Messer Francisco?  You will never be so hard hearted as to go away and leave me behind?”

“I shall be very glad to have you with me, Giuseppi, if your father will give you leave to go.  I am quite sure that Signor Polani will make no objection.  In the first place, he would do it to oblige me, and in the second, I know that it is his intention to do something to your advantage.  He has spoken to me about it several times, for you had your share of the danger when we first rescued his daughters, and again when we were chased by that four-oared gondola.  He has been too busy with the search for his daughters to give the matter his attention, but I know that he is conscious of his obligation to you, and that he intends to reward you largely.  Therefore, I am sure that he will offer no objection to your accompanying me.