made A. careless of
looking out of window, in America, even to see the Falls of Niagara." So
that he soon had to report the gain, to all of them, from the fact of
this enterprising woman having so primed herself with "the names of all
sorts of vegetables, meats, soups, fruits, and kitchen necessaries,"
that she was able to order whatever was needful of the peasantry that
were trotting in and out all day, basketed and barefooted. Her example
became at once contagious;[83] and before the end of the second week of
September news reached me that "the servants are beginning to pick up
scraps of Italian; some of them go to a weekly conversazione of servants
at the Governor's every Sunday night, having got over their
consternation at the frequent introduction of quadrilles on these
occasions; and I think they begin to like their foreigneering life."

In the tradespeople they dealt with at Albaro he found amusing points of
character. Sharp as they were after money, their idleness quenched even
that propensity. Order for immediate delivery two or three pounds of
tea, and the tea-dealer would be wretched. "Won't it do to-morrow?" "I
want it now," you would reply; and he would say, "No, no, there can be
no hurry!" He remonstrated against the cruelty. But everywhere there was
deference, courtesy, more than civility. "In a cafe a little tumbler of
ice costs something less than threepence, and if you give the waiter in
addition what you would not offer to an English beggar, say, the third
of a halfpenny, he is profoundly grateful." The attentions received from
English residents were unremitting.[84] In moments of need at the
outset, they bestirred themselves ("large merchants and grave men") as
if they were the family's salaried purveyors; and there was in especial
one gentleman named Curry whose untiring kindness was long remembered.

The light, eager, active figure soon made itself familiar in the streets
of Genoa, and he never went into them without bringing some oddity away.
I soon heard of the strada Nuova and strada Balbi; of the broadest of
the two as narrower than Albany-street, and of the other as less wide
than Drury-lane or Wych-street; but both filled with palaces of noble
architecture and of such vast dimensions that as many windows as there
are days in the year might be counted in one of them, and this not
covering by any means the largest plot of ground. I heard too of the
other streets, none with footways, and all va