And what would I buy with the God-damn three thousand five hundred lire; and this is a good old man.
''Do you want me to send that man there?'' he pointed to a destroyed old man who did odd jobs and ran errands around the docks, always ready with the unneeded aid to the elbow of the ascending or descending passenger, always ready to help when no help was needed, his old felt hat held out as he bowed after the un-needed act. ''He'll take you to the vaporetto.
There's one in twenty minutes.''
''The hell with it,'' the Colonel said. ''Take us to the Gritti.''
''Con piacere,'' the boatman said.
The Colonel and Jackson lowered themselves into the launch which looked like a speed boat.
It was radiantly varnished and lovingly kept and was powered with a marine conversion of a tiny Fiat engine that had served its allotted time in the car of a provincial doctor and had been purchased out of one of the grave-yards of automobiles, those mechanical elephant cemeteries that are the one certain thing you may find in our world near any populated center, and been reconditioned and reconverted to start this new life on the canals of this city.
''How is the motor doing?'' the Colonel asked.
He could hear her sounding like a stricken tank or T.D., except the noises were in miniature from the lack of power.
''So-so,'' the boatman said. He moved his free hand in a parallel motion.
''You ought to get the smallest model Universal puts out.
That's the best and lightest small marine engine I know.''
''Yes,'' the boatman said. ''There are quite a few things I should get.''
''Maybe you'll have a good year.''
''It's always possible.
Lots of pescecani come down from Milano to gamble at the Lido.
But nobody would ride twice in this thing on purpose.
As a boat, it is fine, too.
It is a well built, pleasant boat.
Not beautiful as a gondola is, of course.
But it needs an engine.''
''I might get you a jeep engine.
One that was condemned and you could work it over.''
''Don't talk about such things,'' the boatman said. ''Things like that don't happen.
I don't want to think about it.''
''You can think about it,'' the Colonel said. ''I'm talking true.''
''You mean it.''
''Sure.
I don't guarantee anything.
I'll see what I can do.
How many children have you got?''
''Six.
Two male and four female.'' ''Hell, you mustn't have believed in the Regime.
Only six.''
''I didn't believe in the Regime.''
''You don't have to give me that stuff,'' the Colonel said. ''It would have been quite natural for you to have believed in it.
Do you think I hold that against a man after we've won?''
They were through the dull part of the canal that runs from Piazzale Roma to Ca'Foscari, though none of it is dull, the Colonel thought.
It doesn't all have to be palaces nor churches.
Certainly that isn't dull.
He looked to the right, the starboard, he thought.
I'm on the water.
It was a long low pleasant building and there was a trattoria next to it.
I ought to live here.
On retirement pay I could make it all right.
No Gritti Palace.
A room in a house like that and the tides and the boats going by.
I could read in the mornings and walk around town before lunch and go every day to see the Tintorettos at the Accademia and to the Scuola San Rocco and eat in good cheap joints behind the market, or, maybe, the woman that ran the house would cook in the evenings.
I think it would be better to have lunch out and get some exercise walking.
It's a good town to walk in.