ournal Office, so he intimated to his new friend, that if they
could conveniently walk in that direction, he would be glad to get this
piece of business off his mind.

'And speaking of business,' said Martin, 'may I ask, in order that I may
not be behind-hand with questions either, whether your occupation holds
you to this city, or like myself, you are a visitor here?'

'A visitor,' replied his friend. 'I was "raised" in the State of
Massachusetts, and reside there still. My home is in a quiet country
town. I am not often in these busy places; and my inclination to visit
them does not increase with our better acquaintance, I assure you.'

'You have been abroad?' asked Martin.

'Oh yes.'

'And, like most people who travel, have become more than ever attached
to your home and native country,' said Martin, eyeing him curiously.

'To my home--yes,' rejoined his friend. 'To my native country AS my
home--yes, also.'

'You imply some reservation,' said Martin.

'Well,' returned his new friend, 'if you ask me whether I came back here
with a greater relish for my country's faults; with a greater fondness
for those who claim (at the rate of so many dollars a day) to be her
friends; with a cooler indifference to the growth of principles among
us in respect of public matters and of private dealings between man and
man, the advocacy of which, beyond the foul atmosphere of a criminal
trial, would disgrace your own old Bailey lawyers; why, then I answer
plainly, No.'

'Oh!' said Martin; in so exactly the same key as his friend's No, that
it sounded like an echo.

'If you ask me,' his companion pursued, 'whether I came back here better
satisfied with a state of things which broadly divides society into two
classes--whereof one, the great mass, asserts a spurious independence,
most miserably dependent for its mean existence on the disregard of
humanizing conventionalities of manner and social custom, so that the
coarser a man is, the more distinctly it shall appeal to his taste;
while the other, disgusted with the low standard thus set up and made
adaptable to everything, takes refuge among the graces and refinements
it can bring to bear on private life, and leaves the public weal to
such fortune as may betide it in the press and uproar of a general
scramble--then again I answer, No.'

And again Martin said 'Oh!' in the same odd way as before, being anxious
and disconcerted; not so much, to say the truth, on public grounds,