“Our country must be very different from yours,” said Tommy, one day.
“Veery, veery different indeed! Wonderful countree,—delightful! What grand rivers! what waterfalls,—Niag-e-ra! what lakes! Room for all ze world! Hospitalitee for all ze nations!”
“The Frenchman says our country is the most wonderful in all the world,” said Tommy to the portly Englishman.
The latter looked very solemn; seemed about to speak, then made a long pause as though the opinion he was about to utter was a very weighty one.
“Poverty to riches, riches to poverty; now up, now down, but the animating principle always the same,—riches, riches. Wonderful people! progress! each one living to outdo the other. To-day an alderman, to-morrow in the penitentiary; to-day my Lady of Lynne, to-morrow John o’ the Scales’s wife!”
Tommy had an idea of what his lugubrious acquaintance meant to say, though the latter’s wisdom was rather above his intellectual stature.
“We have no castles in America,” said Tommy.
“Castles! No; an American family could not keep a castle: it would be sold in five years for a mill.”
