There are two or three hotels frequented by foreigners on the Riva,
for the situation facing the open lagoon is an exceptionally good one;
and there are three or four caffes at which the cosmopolitan and not
too aristocratic visitor may get an excellent cup of coffee (for the
Venetians, thanks to their long connection with the East, know
what coffee is, and will not take chiccory or other such detestable
substitutes in lieu of it) for the modest charge of thirteen
centimes--just over two cents--and study as he drinks it the moving
and ever-amusing scenes enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps
will be an old gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose
mask was in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of
Venice. There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features
terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the high
cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, the dark
bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very seedy, and
evidently _very_ poor. But he salutes you, as you take your seat
beside him, with the air of an ex-member of "The Ten;" his ancient
hat and napless coat are carefully brushed; his outrageously high
shirt-collar and voluminous unstarched neckcloth, after the fashion of
a former generation, though as yellow as saffron, are clean; and his
poor old boots as irreproachable as blacking--which can do much, but,
alas! not all things--can make them.
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