Experience soon showed me that this was no idle vaunt. Though--to her great disappointment--I declined to buy any velvet, yet I gladly availed myself of her services for other purchases, and never in my life, either before or since, have I met with any one who was her match in bargaining. She never bought anything at a shop or stall without having taken a final farewell and departed from it at least twice, and then suffered herself to be brought back by the persuasions of the owner; I think she regarded this going away and returning as quite a necessary part of the negotiation, without which it could not possibly come to a proper conclusion. At all events her efforts were invariably successful, and she forced shopkeepers, market-people, and sellers of every sort with whom she had dealings, to accept reductions of price which seemed to me almost incredible. Meanwhile I, in whose behalf she was exerting herself, used merely to assist as a passive spectator, feeling that my knowledge of mankind was being enlarged, and that I was gaining a valuable insight into the amount of dishonesty and cunning that was latent in human beings in general, and Italians in particular. This was especially my feeling when, as more than once happened, I perceived that my friend herself was not altogether exempt from the failings of her country-people; and that, relying on my knowledge of Italian being less than it really was, she was making a little profit at my expense out of the transaction she was conducting for me. This was a fresh revelation of the depravity of human nature, and impressed upon my youthful mind the folly of trusting absolutely to any professions of friendship, however genuine they might appear. But, after all, it was not to be expected that she would take a great deal of trouble for a stranger gratuitously and out of pure love; besides that, she allowed no one except herself to cheat me, so that in the end my pocket was saved, notwithstanding the commissions that she managed adroitly to retain for her own benefit; and as, furthermore, I derived much instruction from her in the art of bargaining, I saw that on the whole I was a gainer by her help, and had nothing to complain of. So I let her act for me as before, chuckling inwardly at her vehement denunciations of the roguery that surrounded us, and not telling her of what I had discovered regarding her own.