Poling a rudderless, keelless
skiff up a crooked stream by means of a fifteen-foot balancing pole is
an art only to be classed with that of rowing a gondola. Gondoliers and
punters, like poets, are born, not made. My own Luigi comes of a race of
gondoliers dating back two hundred years, and punters must spring from
just such ancestors. No, if I had to do the poling myself, I should
rather get out and walk.
Fin solved the problem--not from any special training (rowing in
regattas and the like), but rather from that universal adaptability of
the Irishman which fits him for filling any situation in life, from a
seat on a dirt-cart to a chair in an aldermanic chamber.
"I am a paper-hanger by trade, sor," he began, "but I was brought up on
the river and can put a punt wid the best. Try me, sor, at four bob a
day; I'm out of a job."
I looked him over, from his illuminated head down to his parenthetical
legs, caught the merry twinkle in his eyes, and a sigh of relief escaped
me. Here was not only a seafaring man, accustomed to battling with the
elements, skilled in the handling of poles, and acquainted with swift
and ofttimes dangerous currents, but a brother brush, a man conversant
with design and pigments; an artist, keenly sensitive to straight lines,
harmony of tints, and delicate manipulation of surfaces.
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