each hour, there was some mark corresponding to a like mark in some part of Venice.

“It is only a little clue,” he said with affected modesty, “a very little one. But who knows that it may not be the wedge that shall pry open our treasure-box?”

“Produce this wedge by all means,” I said skeptically.

“This morning, about half past ten, I found 169myself in the Campo San Salvatore–you know it, the little square with the house of the gaily painted balcony and the roses on the north side. At the left of the square, going toward San Marco, perhaps you remember, there is a boys’ school. You may have observed a respectable old servant who walks solemnly up to the big bell on the left of the door, leading a little boy by the hand. He always rings the bell at eight o’clock in the morning. When the door is opened he hands the school-books to his charge, shakes his finger at him, and toddles off to the seller of sweetened water at the corner for a drink.”

169

“Has this respectable old man anything to do with your precious discovery?” I asked impatiently.

“A great deal to do with it. This morning, as I was saying, I caught sight of my old man and the young gentleman. My eyes dwelt on them affectionately while the servant rang the big bell, and shook his forefinger at the smiling boy. Now observe, my dear Hume; if I hadn’t met my old man, I should have hurried through the square. In that case I should have missed the boy with the fish.”

“Oh, there is a boy with a fish, is there?” I remarked.

“Yes,” he said severely, “there is a boy with 170a fish. While I stood watching the old man, a stream of curses and abuse in the Venetian dialect disturbed my pleasant reflections. I turned, and there, at the open door of a large house, stood a barefooted boy with a flat basket of fish. Two servants were shrieking at him like the very devil. The fish was bad, perhaps, or the boy had given the wrong change. I do not know. The point is that the old servant, the seller of sweetened water, who left his stand, and the dark-eyed gipsies at the well, who left their buckets, came to look on. The bad little boy with the fish didn’t like this publicity. Especially when a majestic policeman with a long feather in his round hat––”

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I groaned. “Is the majestic policeman with the long feather in his round hat 

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