plashed riotously upon the cold whites and pale hues
of heaven. The night train for Venice, a long line of black coaches, is
entering the town. Somewhere below, apparently in the barracks, a sunset
gun is fired. After a silence of perhaps two or three minutes, the
Americans gather fresh inspiration and resume their conversation.

"I have seen worse scenery."

"Very pretty."

"Yes, sir; it's well worth the money."

"But the Rockies beat it all hollow."

"Oh, of course. They have nothing over here that we can't beat to a
whisper. Just consider the Rhine, for instance. The Hudson makes it look
like a country creek."

"Yes, you're right. Take away the castles, and not even a German would
give a hoot for it. It's not so much what a thing _is_ over here as what
_reputation_ it's got. The whole thing is a matter of press-agenting."

"I agree with you. There's the 'beautiful, blue Danube.' To me it looks
like a sewer. If _it's_ blue, then _I'm_ green. A man would hesitate to
drown himself in such a mud puddle."

"But you hear the bands playing that waltz all your life, and so you
spend your good money to come over here to see the river. And when you
get back home you don't want to admit that you've been a sucker, so you
start touting it from hell to breakfast. And then some other fellow
comes over and does the same, and so on and so on."

"Yes, it's all a matter of boosting. Day in and day out you hear about
Westminster Abbey. Every English book mentions it; it's in the
newspapers almost as much as William Jennings Bryan or Caruso. Well, one
day you pack your grip, put on your hat and come over to have a
look--and what do you find? A one-horse church full of statues! And
every statue crying for sapolio! You expect to see something
magnificent, something enormous, something to knock your eye out and
send you down for the count. What you _do_ see is a second-rate
graveyard under roof. And when you examine into it, you find that
two-thirds of the graves haven't even got a dead man in them. Whenever a
prominent Englishman dies, they put up a statue to him in Westminster
Abbey--_no matter where he happens to be buried_. I call that clever
advertising. That's the way to get the crowd."

"Yes, these foreigners know the game. They have made millions out of it
in Paris. Every time you go to see a musical comedy at home, the second
act is laid in Paris, and you see a whole stageful of girls doing the
hesitation, and a lot of