Anthony Trollope 
Man Who Kept His Money In A Box 

Anthony Trollope’s The Man Who Kept His Money in a Box is a short story about the Greenes, a wealthy English family who are on a holiday tour of Europe. During a trip down Lake Como, Italy, Mr. Greene loses a very valuable box in which he keeps all his money and his wife’s expensive jewellery. Due to linguistic obstacles, he asks a countryman named Mr. Robinson who is on the same trip to help him find the box. Mr. Robinson does his best to help the Greenes, yet all his efforts go in vain as he finds no trace of the lost box and eventually goes back to the hotel. Mr. Robinson even suspects that the loss of the box could probably be just a sham for a certain hidden intention. Surprisingly, when days later Mr. Robinson starts preparing himself to leave for home and his own luggage is brought to the hotel’s reception, Mr. Greene’s missing box is seen among the luggage. Now Mr. Robinson is clearly suspected of having intentionally hidden the box, even though it is only a tacit accusation. Generally, Trollope’s story is characterized by a general atmosphere of mistrust, which represents the main generator of humor in the narrative.