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When vacancies occur on the traghetti, a gondolier who owns or hires a boat makes application to the municipality, receives a number, and is inscribed as plying at a certain station. He has now entered a sort of guild, which is presided over by a Capo-traghetto, elected by the rest for the protection of their interests, the settlement of disputes, and the management of their common funds.
And because of the abuses which had been gradually undermining the fair reputation of the established orders of the traghetti, the Republic, by slow encroachments upon ancient concessions, was surely reducing their wealth and independence. "Santa Maria!" Piero ejaculated after a pause, during which his wrath had been growing.
Even the little trellises of the <I>traghetti</I> count charmingly as reminders, amid so much artifice, of the woodland nature of man. The vine-leaves, trained on horizontal poles, make a roof of chequered shade for the gondoliers and ferrymen, who doze there according to opportunity, or chatter or hail the approaching "fare."
There is no need for a gondolier ever to do so either by day or night; while when he is not talking he is accompanying every movement by a grunt. It is this habit of talking and bickering which should make one very careful in choosing a lodging. Never let it be near a traghetto; for at traghetti there is talk incessant, day and night: argument, abuse, and raillery.
When I say they are associated with its silence I should immediately add that they are associated also with its sound. Among themselves they are an extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the <i>traghetti</i>, where they always have some sharp point under discussion; they bawl across the canals; they bespeak your commands as you approach; they defy each other from afar.
When the money is little it is the gastaldo who pays much. And the toso all his faults blamed on the traghetti! Ah, signore, for the gondolier it is a life Santa Maria!" He threw up his hands with a feint of being at a loss to convey its hardships. "Come non c'è altro!" said the Veronese, laughing; "there is none like it."
This question of the traghetti and their abuses had lately grown to large proportions among the people, and it possessed a deep interest for all classes quite apart from the antiquity and picturesqueness of these honorable institutions of the Republic since all must use the ferries and wish for safety in their water-streets.
"We are come, your Excellencies, for news of our Gastaldo Grande, whose presence is verily needful for the traghetti," said the white-haired bancalo, when an audience had been granted him. "How many of you have come as escort?" the secretary questioned carelessly.
So Piero, laughing at the ease with which he had carried his point for nothing but the asking, and it had to be done, since he had promised Marina, had his interview alone with Fra Paolo, and passed easily through the group of disappointed friars, under those exquisitely wrought arcades to his gondola, thanking them with nonchalance and pressing them to avail themselves more often of the eager service of his barcarioli, that the blessing of the Madonna might be upon their traghetti, to the discomfiture of their rivals the Castellani.
"This for the need of the cause in thy hand," said Piero, passing him a purse of gold. "But gold is worthless to this token which shall win thee the hearing of the bancali, and the aid of every loyal son of San Nicolò, and shall be proof that thou bearest my orders and my trust." The trust was great the bancali were the governing board of the traghetti.
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