tended largely to
repress the enterprising spirit which leads men into paths previously
untrodden. "That you 'll see, sir, when you come to mix with our people.
And now, a word of advice to you before you begin."

He drew his arm within Layton's as he said this, and led him two or
three turns on the deck in silence. The subject was in some sort a
delicate one, and he did not well see how to open it without a certain
risk of offending. "Here's how it is," said he at last. "Our folk isn't
your folk because they speak the same language. In _your_ country, your
station or condition, or whatever you like to call it, answers for you,
and the individual man merges into the class he belongs to. Not so here.
_We_ don't care a red cent about your rank, but we want to know about
you yourself! Now, you strangers mistake all that feeling, and call it
impertinence and curiosity, and such-like; but it ain't anything of
the kind! No, sir. It simply means what sort of knowledge, what art or
science or labor, can you contribute to the common stock? Are you a-come
amongst us to make us wiser or richer or thriftier or godlier; or are
you just a loafer,--a mere loafer? My asking _you_ on a rail-car whence
you come and where you 're a-goin' is no more impertinence than my
inquirin' at a store whether they have got this article or that! I
want to know whether you and I, as we journey together, can profit each
other; whether either of us mayn't have something the other has never
heard afore. He can't have travelled very far in life who has n't picked
up many an improvin' thing from men he didn't know the names on, ay,
and learned many a sound lesson, besides, of patience, or contentment,
forgiveness, and the like; and all that ain't so easy if people won't be
sociable together!"

Layton nodded a sort of assent; and Quackinboss continued, in the same
strain, to point out peculiarities to be observed, and tastes to be
consulted, especially with reference to the national tendency to invite
to "liquor," which he assured Layton by no means required a sense of
thirst on his part to accede to. "You ain't always charmed when you say
you are, in French, sir; and the same spirit of politeness should lead
you to accept a brandy-smash without needing it, or even to drink off a
cocktail when you ain't dry. After all," said he, drawing a long breath,
like one summing up the pith of a discourse, "if you're a-goin' to
pick holes in Yankee coats, to see all