A GARDEN IN VENICE 



actually oozed out of it. This mixture, thick as 

 water in a flood, was held up exultingly in a 

 glass none too clean. I tasted, and with entire 

 content declared it excellent, and so it was ; the 

 fruit of a month's hard work carrying to com- 

 pletion the happy useful thought of an able and 

 honest withal old man. 



Pietro had told me the blowing-up story so 

 graphically that I had doubts of the success of an 

 artesian well, and to remove them the well-maker 

 put into my contract an obligation in the case of 

 the water's failure, or insufficient yield, anywhere 

 within ten years to make me a new well. My 

 first well's tube was filled again and again during 

 five years with gas explosions ; as often cleared 

 at the contractor's expense ; and at the end of 

 that time he thought it best to make a new well, 

 and did so at a spot distant perhaps a hundred 

 yards from the first, thanking me warmly when 

 I voluntarily paid him half the expense. 



The same demoniac symptoms, but with less 

 virus, show themselves in this second well. To 

 this day, eight or nine years since it was made, 

 98 



