The day before, Edith had hired an Italian lad to act as a guide, when she had wished to buy an Italian flag and could find none in the shops near the Piazza. She had made her wish known, by signs, to one of the young boys idling at the base of the Lion's Column. He could speak no English, but Edith showed him a tiny American flag which she carried in her purse. "Viva America!" she said, waving the flag with one hand. Then she waved the empty hand, saying, "Viva l'Italia!" and asked very loudly, as if he might be deaf, "Where to buy?" pointing to the flag. The boy nodded that he understood, and led the girl and her mother across the Piazza and under the old Clock Tower, in which the clock has been marking the hours ever since Columbus discovered America. Beyond the tower he led them through short streets and narrow lanes to a remote, wretched part of the city. Although Venice is called the City of the Sea, and has hundreds of canals, there is also a network of narrow streets and lanes threading the islands on which the city is built. It is possible to walk anywhere by following these streets and crossing the bridges, and each house has a land-gate as well as a water-gate. One of these lanes led at last into a small square. A low, narrow doorway opened into a dark room, looking out upon a dirty little canal,--far away from the rose-colored, marble-paved Square of St. Mark--and here Edith found her Italian flag. The room was cluttered with old rubbish; and a dozen ragged, hungry-looking men and women sat idly about on broken chairs. The boy told his errand in Italian to one of the men, who answered him in an angry tone. They disputed together for several moments, and then the man brought a small flag from a far corner of the room. The bright red, green and white stripes of the flag were in good proportion, but it was made of a cheap, flimsy material. "I don't care for it," said Edith, putting her hands behind her and shaking her head. Immediately everybody in the room began to talk loudly, which so frightened Mrs. Sprague that she took out her purse and asked, "How much?" The boy held up four fingers. "Quattro lire," he said. "Four lire!" exclaimed Edith indignantly; "that is almost one dollar, and it isn't worth ten cents." But the excited Italian voices were all speaking at once, and so angrily that Mrs. Sprague dropped the money into an old chair, and seizing the flag with one hand and Edith with the other, she backed quickly out into the open air. She forgot that she knew nothing about the way to her hotel, and, without waiting for the boy, crossed the first bridge she saw, and struck into another narrow lane. She was too anxious as to her whereabouts to notice the interesting sights in the streets through which she hurried; but Edith, with a girl's curiosity, saw everything.