him. And to tell me that's a
nation wants liberty and free institutions! No man wants liberty, sir,
that won't work for his bread; no man really cares for freedom till he's
ready to earn his livin', for this good reason, that the love of liberty
must grow out of personal independence, as you'll see, sir, when you
take a walk yonder." And he pointed to the tall steeples of New York as
he spoke. But Layton cared little for the discussion of such a theme;
his thoughts had another and a very different direction.

"Poor Clara!" muttered he. "How is she to be rescued from such a
destiny?"

"_I_'d say by the energy and determination of the man who cares for
her," said Quackinboss, boldly. "_Come si fa?_ won't save her, that's
certain."

"Can you learn anything of the poor child's history from this man, or
does he know it?"

"Well, sir," drawled out the Colonel, "that ain't so easy to say.
Whether a man has a partic'lar piece of knowledge in his head, or
whether a quartz rock has a streak of gold inside of it, is things only
to be learned in the one way,--by hammering,--ay, sir, by hammering!
Now, it strikes me this Trover don't like hammering; first of all, the
sight of you here has made him suspicious--"

"Not impossible is it that he may have seen you also, Colonel," broke in
Layton.

"Well, sir," said the other, drawing himself proudly up, "and if he had,
what of it? You don't fancy that _we_ are like the Britishers? You don't
imagine that when we appear in Eu-rope that every one turns round and
whispers, 'That's a gentleman from the United States'? No, sir, it
is the remarkable gift of our people to be cosmopolite. We pass for
Russian, French, Spanish, or Italian, jest as we like, not from our
skill in language, which we do not all possess, so much as a certain
easy imitation of the nat-ive that comes nat'ral to us. Even our Western
people, sir, with very remarkable features of their own, have this
property; and you may put a man from Kentucky down on the Boulevard
de Gand to-morrow, and no one will be able to say he warn't a born
Frenchman!"

"I certainly have not made that observation hitherto," said Layton,
dryly.

"Possibly not, sir, because your national pride is offended by our never
imitating _you!_ No, sir, we never do that!"

"But won't you own that you might find as worthy models in England as in
France or Italy?"

"Not for us, sir,--not for us. Besides, we find ourselves at home on the
Continent;