I tell you what, Sir,—­with all these magnificent appliances of civilization, it is time we began to hear something from the jeunesse doree whose names are on the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, marble-palaced Venice,—­something in the higher walks of literature,—­something in the councils of the nation.  Plenty of Art, I grant you, Sir; now, then, for vast libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkers and statesmen,—­five for every Boston one, as the population is to ours,—­ten to one more properly, in virtue of centralizing attraction as the alleged metropolis,—­and not call our people provincials, and have to come begging to us to write the lives of Hendrik Hudson and Gouverneur Morris!

——­The little gentleman was on his hobby, exalting his own city at the expense of every other place.  I don’t suppose he had been in either of the cities he had been talking about.  I was just going to say something to sober him down, if I could, when the young Marylander spoke up.

Come, now,—­he said,—­what’s the use of these comparisons?  Didn’t I hear this gentleman saying, the other day, that every American owns all America?  If you have really got more brains in Boston than other folks, as you seem to think, who hates you for it, except a pack of scribbling fools?  If I like Broadway better than Washington Street, what then?  I own them both, as much as anybody owns either.  I am an American,—­and wherever I look up and see the stars and stripes overhead, that is home to me!

He spoke, and looked up as if he heard the emblazoned folds crackling over him in the breeze.  We all looked up involuntarily, as if we should see the national flag by so doing.  The sight of the dingy ceiling and the gas-fixture depending therefrom dispelled the illusion.

Bravo! bravo!—­said the venerable gentleman on the other side of the table.—­Those are the sentiments of Washington’s Farewell Address.  Nothing better than that since the last chapter in Revelations.  Five-and-forty years ago there used to be Washington societies, and little boys used to walk in processions, each little boy having a copy of the Address, bound in red, hung round his neck by a ribbon.  Why don’t they now?  Why don’t they now?  I saw enough of hating each other in the old Federal times; now let’s love each other, I say,—­let’s love each other, and not try to make it out that there isn’t any place fit to live in except the one we happen to be born in.

It dwarfs the mind, I think,—­said I,—­to feed it on any localism.  The full stature of manhood is shrivelled——­

The color burst up into my cheeks.  What was I saying,—­I, who would not for the world have pained our unfortunate little boarder by an allusion?

I will go,—­he said,—­and made a movement with his left arm to let himself down from his high chair.

No,—­no,—­he doesn’t mean it,—­you must not go,—­said a kind voice next him; and a soft, white hand was laid upon his arm.