VULGAR ECCENTRICITY. 361 



floor of the room, without their coats, all chairs and tables 

 removed, and the bottles and glasses simply at hand, and 

 in that position and after that fashion they attempted to 

 make their visitors intoxicated. " What was the event ? " 

 I asked, pretty well guessing that men who could drink 

 drams and gin-and-brandy cocktail in sips all day would 

 be difficult customers to give a wine quietus to in a short 

 night. " The event ?" replied my friends ; " guess we left 

 your countrymen on their backs, and walked home as 

 steady as a statue in a square at New York." " Were you 

 not surprised," I continued, " at the method of your recep 

 tion, or did you think that that was the way an English 

 gentleman in his own country would behave ? " " Guess 

 we pretty well knew it was poking fun at us, and thought 

 they, your countrymen, were greater fools than we were 

 to suppose that we did not know your customs better." 

 " Quite right," I replied ; " and now let me advise you, 

 my friends, for the future to deem the following a test of 

 the real English gentleman : If any Englishman, Irish 

 man, or Scotchman comes here, and calls himself a lord or 

 a gentleman (the terms ought to be synonymous), and 

 puts on any sort of affectation, be quite sure that he is an 

 impostor, and not a leader in the best society of the Old 

 World. Affectation or any pretence at eccentricity is 

 the height of vulgarity, and neither in a foreign land, nor 

 anywhere else, will a true gentleman forget himself in such 

 miserable assumptions." 



On the morning of quitting St Joseph I was called at 

 half-past four, and at 6 a.m., having had no breakfast, 

 the rail bore me off in the direction of Hanibal, distant 

 206 miles, and alas ! afforded no time for eating till 

 twelve at noon, when we stopped at Brookfield and had 

 time enough to obtain that which to me was a hasty 



