tick to the
truth; and as the people who read like to hear something spicy, they are
obliged to give it all a lurid turn. The female ones are sometimes
spiteful; I expect because women often can't help being so about
everything. These wonderfully sensational papers have only developed in the
last ten years, we are told, so they have not had time to see the effect it
is going to have upon the coming generation.

The better people don't pay the least attention to anything that is
printed, but of course ordinary people in any country would.

We lunched in the most fashionable restaurant down town, but I never can
describe to you, Mamma, the noise and flurry and rush of it. As if
countless men screaming at the top of their voices and every plate being
rattled by scurrying waiters, were not enough, there was the loudest band
as well! Unless you simply yelled you could not make your neighbour hear. I
suppose it is listening to the other din at the Stock Exchange all the
morning;--they would feel lonely if they had quiet to eat in.

Our party was augmented by a celebrated judge, and some other lawyers. We
had been told he was most learned and a wonderful wit, and someone we
should see as a representative American; half the people said he was a
"crook," and the other half that he was the "only straight" judge; and when
I asked what a "crook" was, our host told me the word explained itself, but
that you would be called a crook by all the trusts if you gave judgment
against them, just as, if you let them off, you would be the only honest
judge. So whatever you were called did not amount to anything! The Judge
was much younger than our judges, and had a moustache, and looked just like
ordinary people, and not a bit dignified.

As he has to deliver long speeches when he is judging, one would have
thought he might have liked a little rest and light conversation when he
came out to lunch, especially as every man likes to talk to Octavia and me;
but not a bit of it, he continued to lay down the law in a didactic way so
that no one else could speak. He did not even pretend to be interested in
us. What he said was all quite clever and splendidly put, but having to
show politeness and listen with one's fork suspended in the air, lets the
food get cold, and as it was excellent, all sorts of lovely American
dishes, at last I just attended to that, and did not hear some of his
speeches.

The band suddenly stopped and Octavia's voice say