mid-day meal, far more in America than in England, is the national dinner.  In most American hotels that received us we found the evening meal called supper—­and a very inferior spread it was, compared to the one o’clock service.  In the drinks there is a difference—­the iced water which forms so welcome a part of every meal in the States is generally the only drink; it is not common, out of the great cities, to see claret on the table.  There are differences in the conduct of the trains and in the form of the railway carriages; differences in the despatch and securing of luggage; difference in the railway whistle; difference in the management of the station, until one knows the way about, travelling in America is a continual trial to the temper.  Until, for instance, an understanding of the manners and customs in this respect has been attained, the conveyance of the luggage to the hotel is a ruinous expense.  And unless one understands the rough usage of luggage on American lines, there will be further trials of temper over the breakage of things.  In France and Italy such small differences do not exasperate, because they ate known to exist; one expects them; they are benighted foreigners who know no better.  But in America, where they speak our own language, one seems to have a right, somehow, to expect that all the usages will be exactly the same—­and they are not; and so the cad with the kodak gets his chance.

I can quite understand, even at this day, the making of a book which should hold up to ridicule the whole of a nation on account of these differences.  ’The Americans a great nation?  Why, sir, I could not get—­the whole time that I was them—­such a simple thing as English mustard.  The Americans a great nation?  Well, sir, all I can say is that their breakfast in the Wagner car is a greasy pretence.  The Americans a great nation?  They may be, sir; but all I can say is that there isn’t such a thing—­that I could discover—­as an honest bar-parlour, where a man can have his pipe and his grog in comfort.’  And so on—­the kind of thing may be multiplied indefinitely.  What Mrs. Trollope did sixty years ago might be done again.

But, if I had the time, I would write the companion volume—­that of the American in England—­in which it should be proved, after the same fashion, that this poor old country is in the last stage of decay, because we have compartment carriages on the railway; no checks for the luggage; no electric trolleys in the street; at the hotels no elaborate menu, but only a simple dinner of fish and roast-beef; no iced water, an established Church (the clergy all bursting with fatness); a House of Lords (all profligates); and a Queen who chops off heads when so disposed.  It would also be noted, as proving the contemptible decay of the country, that a large proportion of the lower classes omit the aspirate; that rough holiday-makers laugh and sing and play the accordion as they take their trips abroad; that the factory girls wear hideous