nine o'clock in the
morning
When he had got it , his father might come home , for all Giovanni cared . Before long the gondola was winding its way through the narrow canals , now shooting swiftly along a short straight stretch , between a monastery and a palace , now brought to by a turn of the hand at a corner , as the man at the oar shouted out a direction meant for whoever might be coming , by the right or left , as one should say `` starboard helm '' or `` port helm , '' and both doing the same , two vessels pass clear of one another ; and to this day the gondoliers of Venice use the old words , and tell long-winded stories of their derivation and first meaning , which seem quite unnecessary . But in Beroviero 's time , the gondola had only lately come into fashion , and every one adopted it quickly because it was much cheaper than keeping horses , and it was far more pleasant to be taken quickly by water , by shorter ways , than to ride in the narrow streets , in the mud in winter and in the dust in summer , jostling those who walked , and sometimes quarrelling with those who rode , because the way was too narrow for one horse to pass another , when both had riders on their backs . Moreover , it was law that after nine o'clock in the morning no man who had reached the fig-tree that grew in the open space before San Salvatore , should ride to Saint Mark 's by the Merceria , so that people had to walk the rest of the way , leaving their horses to grooms . The gondola was therefore a great convenience , besides being a notable economy , and old Francesco Sansovino says that in his day , which was within a lifetime of Angelo Beroviero 's , there were nine or ten thousand gondolas in Venice . But at first they had not the high peaked stem of iron , and stem and stern were made almost alike , as in the Venetian boats and skiffs of our own time . Giovanni got out at the steps of the Contarini palace , which , of the many that even then belonged to different branches of that great house , was distinguished above all others by its marvellous outer winding staircase , which still stands in all its beauty and slender grace .