Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

THE GOLDEN SPIKE AND MANY JOURNEYS 419
first inquiry, year after year, on being helped out of the
gondola by the omniscient Swiss porter would be, "Joseph,
is Iico in Venice yet?" and Joseph would reply, "He isn't
here yet, Mr. Smith, but I fear he is coming next week to
the Europa." Rico was t.he Spanish-Parisian professional
rival of Hopkinson Smith in the world market for calle
c canali depicture. Each of them privately thought he
owned Venice in this regard, and each of them had considerable justice in his claim.
His enthusiasm for everything Venetian was infectious.
Night after night he would insist on my threading with
him the narrow back way into the Piazza San Marco. He
would take me by the arm and plant me in the middle of
the square. "Look at it again," he would say. "Just
look at it! What great fellows they were!" His arm swept
around three sides of the quadrangle. "Low, uniform
classic faqades above the arcades. Over there," pointing
to the fourth side, "that domed jewel-box, sparkling with
mosaic. Just one thing was needed to make the show
perfect. And those fellows knew it and got it, that skyrocket!" He added a "lWhiz!" and his arm shot straight
up into the air to simulate the Campanile, which had not
as yet collapsed and been rebuilded.
Speaking of Giorgio: It may be remembered that the
architects of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago planned
a lagoon on which to float a number of real gondolas,
brought from Venice. Somebody selected also a corresponding number of gondoliers to come over to propel
the sable craft. Giorgio's name was not in the honor list.
My own old gondolier, Giovanni Palmerin, told me after

ward that the disappointed pusher of oars went about
like one utterly crushed. These poppi are, or used to be,
with few exceptions the finest chaps in the world, gentle,
skilful, courteous, and sometimes astonishingly unmercenary. Giorgio wrote a letter to Hopkinson Smith which the
latter showed me in New York; I wish I had asked him