they hated to leave.

The stop had roused everybody, and the breakfast tables were promptly
filled, except such as the passengers landing at Plymouth had vacated;
these were stripped of their cloths, and the remaining commensals placed
at others. The seats of the Lefferses were given to March's old Ohio
friend and his wife. He tried to engage them in the tally which began to
be general in the excitement of having touched land; but they shyly held
aloof.

Some English newspapers had come aboard from the tug, and there was the
usual good-natured adjustment of the American self-satisfaction, among
those who had seen them, to the ever-surprising fact that our continent
is apparently of no interest to Europe. There were some meagre New York
stock-market quotations in the papers; a paragraph in fine print
announced the lynching of a negro in Alabama; another recorded a
coal-mining strike in Pennsylvania.

"I always have to get used to it over again," said Kenby. "This is the
twentieth time I have been across, and I'm just as much astonished as I
was the first, to find out that they don't want to know anything about us
here."

"Oh," said March, "curiosity and the weather both come from the west. San
Francisco wants to know about Denver, Denver about Chicago, Chicago about
New York, and New York about London; but curiosity never travels the
other way any more than a hot wave or a cold wave."

"Ah, but London doesn't care a rap about Vienna," said Kenby.

"Well, some pressures give out before they reach the coast, on our own
side. It isn't an infallible analogy."

Triscoe was fiercely chewing a morsel, as if in haste to take part in the
discussion. He gulped it, and broke out. "Why should they care about us,
anyway?"

March lightly ventured, "Oh, men and brothers, you know."

"That isn't sufficient ground. The Chinese are men and brothers; so are
the South-Americans and Central-Africans, and Hawaiians; but we're not
impatient for the latest news about them. It's civilization that
interests civilization."

"I hope that fact doesn't leave us out in the cold with the barbarians?"
Burnamy put in, with a smile.

"Do you think we are civilized?" retorted the other.

"We have that superstition in Chicago," said Burnamy. He added, still
smiling, "About the New-Yorkers, I mean."

"You're more superstitious in Chicago than I supposed. New York is an
anarchy, tempered by vigilance committees."

"Oh, I don't think you can