drawbacks. As to old Greene himself, he was all that was amiable; but
then he was nervous, full of cares, and somewhat apt to be a bore. He
wanted information on a thousand points, and did not seem to
understand that a young man might prefer the conversation of his
daughter to his own. Not that he showed any solicitude to prevent
conversation on the part of his daughter. I should have been
perfectly at liberty to talk to either of the ladies had he not wished
to engross all my attention to himself. He also had found it dull to
be alone with his wife and daughter for the last six weeks.

He was a small spare man, probably over fifty years of age, who gave
me to understand that he had lived in London all his life, and had
made his own fortune in the city. What he had done in the city to
make his fortune he did not say. Had I come across him there I should
no doubt have found him to be a sharp man of business, quite competent
to teach me many a useful lesson of which I was as ignorant as an
infant. Had he caught me on the Exchange, or at Lloyd's, or in the
big room of the Bank of England, I should have been compelled to ask
him everything. Now, in this little town under the Alps, he was as
much lost as I should have been in Lombard Street, and was ready
enough to look to me for information. I was by no means chary in
giving him my counsel, and imparting to him my ideas on things in
general in that part of the world;--only I should have preferred to be
allowed to make myself civil to his daughter.

In the course of conversation it was mentioned by him that they
intended to stay a few days at Bellaggio, which, as all the world
knows, is a central spot on the lake of Como, and a favourite resting-
place for travellers. There are three lakes which all meet here, and
to all of which we give the name of Como. They are properly called