A most agreeable person.

I am sorry to hear him talk so strangely to-night; it serves to encourage the various foolish reports that are circulated concerning him." "And surely," said another Neapolitan, "the circumstance that occurred but the other day, so well known to yourself, Cetoxa, justifies the reports you pretend to deprecate." "Myself and my countryman," said Glyndon, "mix so little in Neapolitan society, that we lose much that appears well worthy of lively interest.
May I enquire what are the reports, and what is the circumstance you refer to ?" "As to the reports, gentlemen," said Cetoxa, courteously, addressing himself to the two Englishmen, "it may suffice to observe, that they attribute to the Signor Zanoni certain qualities which everybody desires for himself, but damns any one else for possessing.

The incident Signor Belgioso alludes to, illustrates these qualities, and is, I must own, somewhat startling.

You probably play, gentlemen ?" (Here Cetoxa paused; and as both Englishmen had occasionally staked a few scudi at the public gaming-tables, they bowed assent to the conjecture.) Cetoxa continued.
"Well, then, not many days since, and on the very day that Zanoni returned to Naples, it so happened that I had been playing pretty high, and had lost considerably.

I rose from the table, resolved no longer to tempt fortune, when I suddenly perceived Zanoni, whose acquaintance I had before made (and who, I may say, was under some slight obligation to me), standing by, a spectator.