ant to make
a Westerner mad tell him he is not like an Englishman. They think they
are like the English. They are awfully thin-skinned in the West. Now in
Boston it's different. _We_ don't care what the English people think of
us."

The idea of the English people sitting down to think about Boston, while
Boston on the other side of the water ostentatiously "didn't care," made
me snigger. The man told me stories. He belonged to a Republic. That was
why every man of his acquaintance belonged either "to one of the first
families in Boston" or else "was of good Salem stock, and his fathers
had come over in the _Mayflower_." I felt as though I were moving in the
midst of a novel. Fancy having to explain to the casual stranger the
blood and breeding of the hero of every anecdote. I wonder whether many
people in Boston are like my friend with the Salem families. I am going
there to see.

"There's no romance in America--it's all hard, business facts," said a
man from the Pacific slope, after I had expressed my opinion about some
rather curious murder cases which might have been called miscarriages of
justice. Ten minutes later, I heard him say slowly, _apropos_ of a game
called "Round the Horn" (this is a bad game. Don't play it with a
stranger.) "Well, it's a good thing for this game that Omaha came up.
Dice were invented in Omaha, and the man who invented 'em he made a
colossal fortune."

I said nothing. I began to feel faint. The man must have noticed it.
"Six-and-twenty years ago, Omaha came up," he repeated, looking me in
the eye, "and the number of dice that have been made in Omaha since
that time is incalculable."

"There is no romance in America," I moaned like a stricken ring-dove, in
the Professor's ear. "Nothing but hard business facts, and the first
families of Boston, Massachusetts, invented dice at Omaha when it first
came up, twenty-six years ago, and that's the solid truth. What am I to
do with a people like this?"

"Are you describing Japan or America? For goodness' sake, stick to one
or the other," said the Professor.

"It wasn't my fault. There's a bit of America in the bar-room, and on my
word it's rather more interesting than Japan. Let's go across to 'Frisco
and hear some more lies."

"Let's go and look at photographs, and refrain from mixing our countries
or our drinks."

By the way, wherever you go in the Further East be humble to the white
trader. Recollect that you are only a poor beast of a