MISS P. The crush isn't quite so bad now. Mr. Podbury, if you will kindly ask your friend not to hold on to our gondola, we should probably be better able to turn. (CULCHARD, _who had fondly imagined himself undetected, takes his hand away as if it were scorched_.) Now we can get away. (_To_ Gondolier.) Voltiamo, se vi piace, prestissimo! [_The gondola turns and departs._ MISS T. Well, I do just enjoy making that Prendergast girl perfectly wild, and that's a fact. (_Reflectively._) And it's queer, but I like her ever so much all the time. Don't _you_ think that's too fonny of me, Mr. Culchard, now? [CULCHARD _feigns a poetic abstraction_. CHAPTER XXII. +One Man's Meat; another Man's Poison.+ SCENE--_The Campo S. S. Giovanni e Paulo. Afternoon._ CULCHARD _is leaning against the pedestal of the Colleoni Statue_. PODBURY. (_who has just come out of S. Giovanni, recognising_ CULCHARD). Hullo! _alone_, eh? Thought you were with Miss Trotter? CULCHARD. So I am. That is, she is going over a metal-worker's show-room close by, and I--er--preferred the open air. But didn't you say you were going out with the--er--Prendergasts again? PODB. So I am. She's in the Church with Bob, so I said I'd come out and keep an eye on the gondola. Nothing much to see in _there_, you know! CULCH. (_with a weary irony_). Only the mausoleums of the Doges--Ruskin's "Street of the Tombs"--and a few trifles of that sort! PODB. That's all. And I'm feeling a bit done, you know. Been doing the Correr Museum all the morning, and not lunched yet! So Miss Trotter's looking at ornamental metal-work? Rather fun that, eh? CULCH. For those who enjoy it. She has only been in there an hour, so she is not likely to come back just yet. What do you say to coming into S. S. Giovanni e Paulo again, with _me_? Those tombs form a really remarkable illustration, as Ruskin points out, of the gradual decay of---- MISS TROTTER (_suddenly flutters up, followed by an attendant carrying a studded halberd, an antique gondola-hook, and two copper water-buckets--all of which are consigned to the disgusted_ CULCHARD). Just hold these a spell till I come back. Thanks ever so much.... Well, Mr. Podbury! Aren't you going to admire my purchases? They're real antique--or if they aren't, they'll wear all the better.... There, I believe I'll just have to run back a minute--don't you put those things in the gondola yet, Mr. Culchard, or they'll get stolen. [_She flutters off._ CULCH. (_helplessly, as he holds the halberd, &c._). I suppose I shall have to stay _here_ now. You're not going? PODB. (_consulting his watch_). Must. Promised old Bob I'd relieve guard in ten minutes. Ta-ta. [_He goes_; _presently_ BOB PRENDERGAST _lounges out of the church_. CULCH. If I could only make a friend of _him_! (_To_ BOB.) Ah, Prendergast! lovely afternoon, isn't it? Delicious breeze! BOB (_shortly_). Can't say. Not had much of it, at present.