all men as being blue or yellow,
as the case may be. One will not say of it, "See that lurid yellow
object," to have another reply, "What! that object directly before us?
I see nothing yellow about it; it is as black as ink." But I was
apparently exactly like such an impossible object. I was, figuratively
speaking, no colour of my own and I was all colours. One, so to speak,
saw me as green, another as white, and yet another as orange, while
some saw quite red as they looked at me. That is, my character
consisted altogether, it seemed, in the amazingly diverse reactions I
inspired in my successive readers. I was intolerably dull, I was
abundantly entertaining, I was over-subtle, I was painfully obvious, I
was exceedingly humorous, and I lacked all humour.

How, at length, a group of editorial gamblers succeeded in coming
sufficiently into harmony about me to render a composite verdict that I
would be a fair publishing risk; but how the title my poor parent had
given me it was unanimously held wouldn't do at all; and how I got
another in book committee meeting; how, after I was (wonderful thing!)
"accepted," I lay in a safe until I thought I should crumble away with
age; and how I was suddenly brought forth and hastily read by the
manufacturing department for ideas for my cover to be, and then by the
advertising department for "copy dope," before being rushed to the
composing room--of these things I have not time to speak further, as I
am now on the press, and am rapidly ceasing to be merely a manuscript.

IX

"YOU ARE AN AMERICAN"

"Lavender, sweet lavender,
Who will buy my sweet blooming lavender?
Buy it once, you'll buy it twice,
And make your clothes sweet and nice!"

She was a wretched-looking creature, with a great basket; and it was so
she sang through the street. By this you know where we are, for this
is one of the old cries of London town.

For the sake of my clothes, and for the noble pleasure of associating
for an instant with the original of a coloured print of old London
types, I bought a sprig of lavender. "Thank you, sir," she said.

I saw it coming; ah! yes, by now I knew she would. "You are an
American, sir," she added, eyeing me with interest.

You would think that since the "American invasion" first began ever so
long ago, some time after Dicky Davis "discovered" London, they, the
British, would have seen enough of us to have become accustomed to us
by now. But, as y