ting
the affairs of the nation, but of strong, coarse, lustful men fighting
for spoil, and thoroughly understanding the best methods of reaching it.

I listened long and intently to speech I could not understand--or but in
spots.

It was the speech of business, however. I had sense enough to know that,
and to do my laughing outside the door.

Then I began to understand why my pleasant and well-educated hosts in
San Francisco spoke with a bitter scorn of such duties of citizenship as
voting and taking an interest in the distribution of offices. Scores of
men have told me, without false pride, that they would as soon concern
themselves with the public affairs of the city or state as rake
muck with a steam-shovel. It may be that their lofty disdain covers
selfishness, but I should be very sorry habitually to meet the fat
gentlemen with shiny top-hats and plump cigars in whose society I have
been spending the evening.

Read about politics as the cultured writer of the magazine regards 'em,
and then, and not till then, pay your respects to the gentlemen who run
the grimy reality.

I'm sick of interviewing night editors who lean their chair against
the wall, and, in response to my demand for the record of a prominent
citizen, answer: "Well, you see, he began by keeping a saloon," etc.
I prefer to believe that my informants are treating me as in the old
sinful days in India I was used to treat the wandering globe-trotter.
They declare that they speak the truth, and the news of dog politics
lately vouchsafed to me in groggeries inclines me to believe, but I
won't. The people are much too nice to slangander as recklessly as I
have been doing.

Besides, I am hopelessly in love with about eight American maidens--all
perfectly delightful till the next one comes into the room.

O-Toyo was a darling, but she lacked several things--conversation for
one. You cannot live on giggles. She shall remain unmarried at Nagasaki,
while I roast a battered heart before the shrine of a big Kentucky
blonde, who had for a nurse when she was little a negro "mammy."

By consequence she has welded on California beauty, Paris dresses,
Eastern culture, Europe trips, and wild Western originality, the queer,
dreamy superstitions of the quarters, and the result is soul-shattering.
And she is but one of many stars.

Item, a maiden who believes in education and possesses it, with a few
hundred thousand dollars to boot and a taste for slumming.

I