h _Dombey_; at
which he had been working for a little time when he described to me
(24th of August) a visit from two English travellers, of one of whom
with the slightest possible touch he gives a speaking likeness.[125]

"Not having your letter as usual, I sat down to write to you on
speculation yesterday, but lapsed in my uncertainty into _Dombey_, and
worked at it all day. It was, as it has been since last Tuesday morning,
incessantly raining regular mountain rain. After dinner, at a little
after seven o'clock, I was walking up and down under the little
colonnade in the garden, racking my brain about _Dombeys_ and _Battles
of Lives_, when two travel-stained-looking men approached, of whom one,
in a very limp and melancholy straw hat, ducked, perpetually to me as he
came up the walk. I couldn't make them out at all; and it wasn't till I
got close up to them that I recognised A. and (in the straw hat) N. They
had come from Geneva by the steamer, and taken a scrambling dinner on
board. I gave them some fine Rhine wine, and cigars innumerable. A.
enjoyed himself and was quite at home. N. (an odd companion for a man of
genius) was snobbish, but pleased and good-natured. A. had a five pound
note in his pocket which he had worn down, by careless carrying about,
to some two-thirds of its original size, and which was so ragged in its
remains that when he took it out bits of it flew about the table. 'Oh
Lor you know--now really--like Goldsmith you know--or any of those great
men!' said N. with the very 'snatches in his voice and burst of
speaking' that reminded Leigh Hunt of Cloten. . . . The clouds were lying,
as they do in such weather here, on the earth, and our friends saw no
more of Lake Leman than of Battersea. Nor had they, it might appear,
seen more of the Mer de Glace, on their way here; their talk about it
bearing much resemblance to that of the man who had been to Niagara and
said it was nothing but water."

His next letter described a day's party of the Cerjats, Watsons, and
Haldimands, among the neighbouring hills, which, contrary to his custom
while at work, he had been unable to resist the temptation of joining.
They went to a mountain-lake twelve miles off, had dinner at the
public-house on the lake, and returned home by Vevay at which they
rested for tea; and where pleasant talk with Mr. Cerjat led to anecdotes
of an excellent friend of ours, formerly resident at Lausanne, with
which the letter closed. Our fr