"mnkmb10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Trollope Anthony)

good. Indeed her face would have been altogether prepossessing had
there not been a want of gentleness in her eyes. Her hands, too, were
soft and small, and on the whole she may be said to have been
possessed of a strong battery of feminine attractions. She also well
knew how to use them.

"Whisper," she said to me, with a peculiar but very proper aspiration
on the h--"Wh-hisper," and both by the aspiration and the use of the
word I knew at once from what island she had come. "Mr. Greene keeps
all his money in this box also; so I never let it go out of my sight
for a moment. But whatever you do, don't tell him that I told you
so."

I laid my hand on my heart, and made a solemn asseveration that I
would not divulge her secret. I need not, however, have troubled
myself much on that head, for as I walked up stairs, keeping my eye
upon the precious trunk, Mr. Greene addressed me.

"You are an Englishman, Mr. Robinson," said he. I acknowledged that I
was.

"I am another. My wife, however, is Irish. My daughter,--by a former
marriage,--is English also. You see that box there."

"Oh, yes," said I, "I see it." I began to be so fascinated by the box
that I could not keep my eyes off it.

"I don't know whether or no it is prudent, but I keep all my money
there; my money for travelling, I mean."

"If I were you, then," I answered, "I would not say anything about it
to any one."

"Oh, no, of course not," said he; "I should not think of mentioning
it. But those brigands in Italy always take away what you have about
your person, but they don't meddle with the heavy luggage."

"Bills of exchange, or circular notes," I suggested.

"Ah, yes; and if you can't identify yourself, or happen to have a
headache, you can't get them changed. I asked an old friend of mine,
who has been connected with the Bank of England for the last fifty
years, and he assured me that there was nothing like sovereigns."

"But you never get the value for them."

"Well, not quite. One loses a franc, or a franc and a half. But
still, there's the certainty, and that's the great matter. An English
sovereign will go anywhere," and he spoke these words with
considerable triumph.