"Yes, it's a pretty place," answered Mr. Ferris, warily.
"So much pleasanter here on the Canalazzo than on the campos or the little canals."
"Here there must be constant amusement in watching the boats: great stir, great variety, great life. And now the fine season commences, and the Signor Console's countrymen will be coming to Venice. Perhaps," added Don Ippolito with a polite dismay, and an air of sudden anxiety to escape from his own purpose, "I may be disturbing or detaining the Signor Console?"
"No," said Mr. Ferris; "I am quite at leisure for the present. In what can I have the honor of serving you?"
Don Ippolito heaved a long, ineffectual sigh, and taking his linen handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead with it, and rolled it upon his knee. He looked at the door, and all round the room, and then rose and drew near the consul, who had officially seated himself at his desk.
"I suppose that the Signor Console gives passports?" he asked.
"Sometimes," replied Mr. Ferris, with a clouding face.
Don Ippolito seemed to note the gathering distrust and to be helpless against it. He continued hastily: "Could the Signor Console give a passport for America ... to me?"
"Are you an American citizen?" demanded the consul in the voice of a man whose suspicions are fully roused.
"No, surely; I have not that happiness. I am an Austrian subject," returned Don Ippolito a little bitterly, as if the last words were an unpleasant morsel in the mouth.
"Then I can't give you a passport," said Mr. Ferris, somewhat more gently. "You know," he explained, "that no government can give passports to foreign subjects. That would be an unheard-of thing."
"But I thought that to go to America an American passport would be needed."
"In America," returned the consul, with proud compassion, "they don't care a fig for passports. You go and you come, and nobody meddles. To be sure," he faltered, "just now, on account of the secessionists, they _do_ require you to show a passport at New York; but," he continued more boldly, "American passports are usually for Europe; and besides, all the American passports in the world wouldn't get _you_ over the frontier at Peschiera. _You_ must have a passport from the Austrian Lieutenancy of Venice."
