You fight them off, declaring
passionately that you are not in the market for colored glass at
this time. The hired hands protest; and the gondolier, cheated
out of his commission, sorrows greatly, but obeys your command to
move on. At least he pretends to obey it; but a minute later he
brings you up broadside at the water-level doors of a shop dealing
in antiques, known appropriately as antichitas, or at a mosaic
shop or a curio shop. If ever you do succeed in reaching your
destination it is by the exercise of much profanity and great
firmness of will.
The most insistent and pesky shopkeepers of all are those who hive
in the ground floors of the professedly converted palaces that
face on three sides of the Square of Saint Mark's. You dare not
hesitate for the smallest fractional part of a second in front of
a shop here. Lurking inside the open door is a husky puller-in;
and he dashes out and grabs hold of you and will not let go, begging
you in spaghettified English to come in and examine his unapproachable
assortment of bargains. You are not compelled to buy, he tells
you; he only wants you to gaze on his beautiful things. Believe
him not! Venture inside and decline to purchase and he will think
up new and subtle Italian forms of insult and insolence to visit
on you. They will have brass bands out for you if you invest and
brass knuckles if you do not.
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