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.