ound numbers: "What will
the whole thing come to?" he asks; while the Englishman wants to know
the items. This habit permeates American life in every department. It is
labour-saving. Few things amuse or irritate the American visitor to
England more than the having to pay individually for a number of small
conveniences which at home he is accustomed to have "thrown in"; and the
first time when he is presented with an English hotel bill (I am not
speaking of the modern semi-American hotels in London) with its infinite
list of items, is an experience that he never forgets.

All of which is only to explain that the distinguished physician, when
he spoke of the absence of _tables d'hote_ in America, was talking
parsnips. His experience had been limited to a few hotels and
restaurants in New York and one or two other large towns.

If only it were possible to catch in some great "receiver" or "coherer,"
or some similar instrument, all the things that were said in London in
the course of twenty-four hours about the United States by people who
had been there, and all the things that were said in New York in the
same period about England by people of equal experience, and set them
down side by side, it would make entertaining reading. The wonder is,
not that we misunderstand each other as much as we do, but that somehow
we escape a vast mutual, international contempt.

Several times in the course of my residence in the United States I have
had said to me: "What! Are you an Englishman? But you don't drop your
H's!"

Which is ridiculous, is it not, English reader? But before you smile at
it, permit me to explain that it is no whit worse than when you
say:--"What! Are you an American? But you don't speak with an accent!"
Or possibly you call it a "twang" or you say "speak through your nose."

You may be dining, English reader, at, let us say, the Carlton or Savoy
when a party of Americans comes into the room--Americans of the kind
that every one knows for Americans as soon as he sees or hears them. The
women are admirably dressed--perhaps a shade too admirably--and the
costumes of the men irreproachable. But there is that something of
manner, of walk, of voice which draws all eyes to them as they advance
to their table, and the room is hushed as they arrange their seats.
"Those horrid Americans!" says one of your party and no one protests.
But at the next table to you there is seated another party of delightful
people--low-voic