he fear of having his
sensibilities unpleasantly jarred upon, partly from the fear of making
objectionable acquaintances whom he might afterward be unable to shake
off, and partly from an inherent and ineradicable shyness, he went about
clad in a mantle of gloomy reserve, speaking to no one, looking at no
one--"grand, gloomy and peculiar." It was currently reported that previous
to our arrival he had never spoken to a creature in the boarding-house,
though he had been an inmate of it for six weeks. For the rest, he was
clever and intelligent, with frank, honest, boyish ways, which I liked,
even though they were sometimes rather exasperating.

It was not quite pleasant, for instance, to hear him speak of Americans in
the frank and unconstrained manner which he adopted when talking to us. We
could hardly wonder at it when we looked at the promiscuous crowd which
formed his idea of American society. Refined and well-bred people there
certainly were, but these were precisely the ones who never forced
themselves upon his notice, leaving him to be struck and stunned by fast
and hoydenish young ladies, ungrammatical and ill-bred old ones, and men of
all shades of boorishness and swagger, such as make themselves conspicuous
in every crowd. Unluckily, both Koenigin and I have English blood in our
veins, and the Jook could not be convinced that we did not eagerly snatch
at the chance thus presented of claiming the title of British subjects. It
is quite hopeless to attempt to convince Englishmen that any American would
not be British if he could. Pride in American citizenship is an idea
utterly monstrous and inconceivable to them, and they can look on the
profession of it in no other light than that of a laudable attempt at
making the best of a bad case. Therefore, the Jook persisted in ignoring
our protestations of patriotic ardor, and in paying us the delicate
compliment of considering us English and expressing his views on America
with a beautiful frankness which kept us in a frame of mind verging on
delirium.

What was to be done with such a man? Clearly, but one thing, and I sighed
for one of our American belles who should come and see and conquer this
impracticable Englishman. At present, things seemed quite hopeless. There
was no one within reach who would have the slightest chance of success in
such an undertaking. Though outsiders gave me the credit of his
subjugation, I knew quite well that there not only was not, but ne