real idea about it. It was to me an Eldorado, where
ill-luck was undreamt of; and where I should be able to heap up riches
without the slightest out-of-the-way exertion on my part, in an
incredibly short space of time:--riches that would enable me to return
home, in the character of a millionaire, in a year or two at the
outside, and claim Min's hand from the then-unresisting Mrs Clyde!

Was I not a fool? Pray, say so, if you think it.--_I_ won't mind, bless
you! for, I know that there are more such in the world besides myself,
eh?

I soon found out my mistake.

Not only was the cost of living excessively high--I had to pay twelve
dollars a week for a bedroom in Brooklyn, an adjacent suburb, with
"board" of which I did not partake very frequently, through an inherent
dislike to bad cookery--but employment of any description was so
difficult to be obtained that for every vacant situation advertised in
the New York papers there were several hundred applicants, amongst whom
an Englishman stood a very poor chance of being selected when competing
with native citizens.

Do you know, Transatlantica is about the very worst quarter of the globe
for an educated man to go to, who has no scientific attainments, such as
a knowledge of chemistry and engineering--which may occasionally stand
him in good stead.

For skilled artisans, or those brought up to a regular trade, there are
good wages to be had, and constant work; but a "gentleman," or clerk--
unless he intends reversing the whole training of his life, which he
will find an extremely difficult thing to do--had far better go and
break stones on the highways at home, than think to improve his
condition by emigrating to America!

There are some men who can throw off all old associations and the habits
in which they have been bred from boyhood, but, not one in a thousand--
though I have myself seen an Oxford graduate acting as an hotel tout in
Cincinnati and the son of a "Bart, of the British Empire" driving a mud
cart in Chicago!--neither of these, either, had been brought down by
drinking, that general curse of exiled Englishmen in ill-luck.

I had good introductions; and yet, although I met with great hospitality
in being asked out to dinner, I could never get any employment put in my
way.

A dinner is a dinner, certainly, and a very good thing in itself--not to
be sneezed at, either, in the Empire City, let me tell you; for, there,
you can have as neat a repast ser