always strike a bargain before I
eat a meal or take a lodging. I only travel in public conveyances."

"Very good. Here you will be able to economize; I will pay all your
expenses, and give you an excellent cicerone, one who will cost you
nothing."

"I am much obliged, but I promised my mother not to accept anything from
anybody."

"I think you might make an exception in my case."

"No. I have relations in Venice, and I would not take so much as a single
dinner from them. When I promise, I perform."

Knowing his obstinacy, I did not insist. He was now a young man of
twenty-three, of a delicate order of prettiness, and might easily have
been taken for a girl in disguise if he had not allowed his whiskers to
grow.

Although his grand tour seemed an extravagant project, I could not help
admiring his courage and desire to be well informed.

I asked him about his mother and daughter, and he replied to my questions
without reserve.

He told me that Madame Cornelis was head over ears in debts, and spent
about half the year in prison. She would then get out by giving fresh
bills and making various arrangements with her creditors, who knew that
if they did not allow her to give her balls, they could not expect to get
their money.

My daughter, I heard, was a pretty girl of seventeen, very talented, and
patronized by the first ladies in London. She gave concerts, but had to
bear a good deal from her mother.

I asked him to whom she was to have been married, when she was taken from
the boarding school. He said he had never heard of anything of the kind.

"Are you in any business?"

"No. My mother is always talking of buying a cargo and sending me with it
to the Indies, but the day never seems to come, and I am afraid it never
will come. To buy a cargo one must have some money, and my mother has
none."

In spite of his promise, I induced him to accept the services of my man,
who shewed him all the curiosities of Naples in the course of a week.

I could not make him stay another week. He set out for Rome, and wrote to
me from there that he had left six shirts and a great coat behind him. He
begged me to send them on, but he forgot to give me his address.

He was a hare-brained fellow, and yet with the help of two or three sound
maxims he managed to traverse half Europe without coming to any grief.

I had an unexpected visit from Goudar, who knew the kind of company I
kept, and wanted me to ask his wife and himself