s necessary to my American education."

"Yes. We send Representatives and strangers there to be educated. I have
never been there myself."

"And do you not wish to go?"

"Very much. All Americans want to go to Washington. It is the great
social opportunity; everybody there is in society. You will be able to
see there, Mr. Lyon, how a republican democracy manages social life.

"Do you mean to say there are no distinctions?"

"Oh, no; there are plenty of official distinctions, and a code that is
very curious and complicated, I believe. But still society is open."

"It must be--pardon me--a good deal like a mob."

"Well, our mobs of that sort are said to be very well behaved. Mr.
Morgan says that Washington is the only capital in the world where the
principle of natural selection applies to society; that it is there
shown for the first time that society is able to take care of itself in
the free play of democratic opportunities."

"It must be very interesting to see that."

"I hope you will find it so. The resident diplomats, I have heard,
say that they find society there more agreeable than at any other
capital--at least those who have the qualities to make themselves
agreeable independent of their rank."

"Is there nothing like a court? I cannot see who sets the mode."

"Officially there may be something like a court, but it can be only
temporary, for the personnel of it is dissolved every four years. And
society, always forming and reforming, as the voters of the republic
dictate, is almost independent of the Government, and has nothing of the
social caste of Berlin or London."

"You make quite an ideal picture."

"Oh, I dare say it is not at all ideal; only it is rather fluid, and
interesting, to see how society, without caste and subject to such
constant change, can still be what is called 'society.' And I am told
that while it is all open in a certain way, it nevertheless selects
itself into agreeable groups, much as society does elsewhere. Yes, you
ought to see what a democracy can do in this way."

"But I am told that money makes your aristocracy here."

"Very likely rich people think they are an aristocracy. You see, Mr.
Lyon, I don't know much about the great world. Mrs. Fletcher, whose late
husband was once a Representative in Washington, says that life is
not nearly so simple there as it used to be, and that rich men in the
Government, vying with rich men who have built fine houses and who live