g down with us found the footing a little insecure. The man in
charge bade her be careful, and then she turned upon him in severe
reproof, and scolded him well. She told him that he ought to have those
stairs looked after, for otherwise somebody would be killed one of these
days. 'Well, ma'am,' he said, 'I shouldn't like that. I was in a
railroad accident once. But I tell you what you do. The next time you
come over here, you just telephone me, and I'll have these steps fixed.
Or, I'll tell you: you just write me a letter and let me know exactly
how you want 'em fixed, and I'll see to it myself.'"

"That was charming," we had to own, "and it was of an irony truly
caressing, as you say. Do you think it was exactly respectful?"

"It was affectionate, and I think the lady liked it as much as any of
us, or as the humorist himself."

"Yes, it was just so her own son might have joked her," we assented.
"But tell us, Croesus," we continued, in the form of Socratic dialogue,
"did you find at Boston that multiple unmannerliness which you say is
apparent from the vast increase of adoptive citizens? We have been in
the habit of going to Boston when we wished to refresh our impression
that we had a native country; when we wished to find ourselves in the
midst of the good old American faces, which were sometimes rather
arraigning in their expression, but not too severe for the welfare of a
person imaginably demoralized by a New York sojourn."

Our friend allowed himself time for reflection. "I don't think you could
do that now with any great hope of success. I should say that the
predominant face in Boston now was some type of Irish face. You know
that the civic affairs of Boston are now in the hands of the Irish. And
with reason, if the Irish are in the majority."

"In New York it has long been the same without the reason," we dreamily
suggested.

"In Boston," our friend went on, without regarding us, "the Catholics
outvote the Protestants, and not because they vote oftener, but because
there are more of them."

"And the heavens do not fall?"

"It is not a question of that; it is a question of whether the Irish are
as amiable and civil as the Americans, now they are on top."

"We always supposed they were one of the most amiable and civil of the
human races. Surely you found them so?"

"I did at Queenstown, but at Boston I had not the courage to test the
fact. I would not have liked to try a joke with one of them as I wo