lity antipathetic
to my democratic American notions. Oddly enough, the Europeans looked
upon the United States as a doomed country, thinking I, like some
members of our wealthier classes, had come to escape disruption and
dislocation at home. Only in England did I find the belief prevalent
that the Americans would somehow muddle through because afterall theyre
the same sort of chaps we are, you know.

After a highly successful trip I returned home the same day the Grass
reached the headwaters of the Mississippi.

_53._ William Rufus Le ffacase astonished me, as well as every
newspaperman in the country by resigning as editor of the _Daily
Intelligencer_, a post he had held before many of its reporters were
born. When I phoned him to come to my office and explain himself he
refused, in tones and manner I had not heard from any man since the days
when I had wasted my talents as a subordinate. Having none of the
pettiness of pride which makes some men fearful of their position, since
he would not come to my office, I went to his. There he shocked me for
the third time: a high, glossy collar, a flowing and figured cravat
concealed the famous diamond stud, while instead of the snuffbox his
hands hovered over a package of cheap cigarettes.

"Weener," he rasped, jettisoning all those courtesies to which I had
become accustomed, "I never thought I'd be glad to see your vapid face
again, unless on a marble slab in some city morgue, but now youre here,
moneybags slapping the insides of your thighs in place of the scrotum
for which you could have no possible use, I am delighted to tell you in
person to take my paper--my paper, sir, note that well, for all your
dirty pawings could not make it anything but mine--and supposit it. I
hope it frets you, Weener, for the sake of your sniveling but immortal
soul, I sincerely hope it rasps you like a misplaced hairshirt. You will
get some miserable lickspittle to take my place, some mangy bookkeeping
pimp with a permanentwaved wife and three snottynosed brats, but the
spirit and guts of the _Intelligencer_ depart with W R Le ffacase."

I disregarded both his illmanners and his bombast. "What's the matter,
Bill?" I asked kindly, "Is it more money? You can write your own ticket,
you know. Within reason, of course."

His fingers looked for the snuffbox, but found only the cigarettes which
he inspected puzzledly. "Weener, no man could do you justice. You are
the bloody prototype of all t