"Well, Long Jim an' Tom
here might never hev found anything, but Henry an' Paul an' me,
three eddicated men, scholars, I might say, wuz jest natcherally
bound to find it whether it wuz thar or not. Yes, we've
unearthed what Paul would call an argosy, the grandest craft that
ever floated on this here creek, that I never saw before, an'
that I don't know the name uv. She's bein' floated out now, an'
I, the Gran' Hidalgo an' Majordomo, hev come to tell the princes
and princesses, an' the dukes and dukesses, an' all the other
gran' an' mighty passengers, that the barge o' the Dog o' Venice
is in the stream, an' the Dog, which is Henry Ware, is waitin',
settin' on the Pup to welcome ye."
"Sol," said Long Jim, "you do talk a power uv foolishness, with
your Dogs an' Pups."
"It ain't foolishness," rejoined the shiftless one. "I heard
Paul read it out o' a book oncet, plain ez day. They've been
ruled by Dogs at Venice for more than a thousand years, an' on
big 'casions the Dog comes down a canal in a golden barge,
settin' on the Pup. I'll admit it 'pears strange to me, too, but
who are you an' me, Jim Hart, to question the ways of foreign
countries, thousands o' miles on the other side o' the sea?"
"They've found the boat," said Tom Ross, "an' that's enough!"
"Is it really true?" asked Mrs.
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