I Lost
My Temper At Last, Said I Was A Stranger In America And Not Learned
In Their Etiquette; But I Would Assure Him, If He Went To Any
Bookseller In England, Of More Handsome Usage.
The boast was
perhaps exaggerated; but like many a long shot, it struck the gold.
The manager passed at
Once from one extreme to the other; I may say
that from that moment he loaded me with kindness; he gave me all
sorts of good advice, wrote me down addresses, and came bareheaded
into the rain to point me out a restaurant, where I might lunch,
nor even then did he seem to think that he had done enough. These
are (it is as well to be bold in statement) the manners of America.
It is this same opposition that has most struck me in people of
almost all classes and from east to west. By the time a man had
about strung me up to be the death of him by his insulting
behaviour, he himself would be just upon the point of melting into
confidence and serviceable attentions. Yet I suspect, although I
have met with the like in so many parts, that this must be the
character of some particular state or group of states, for in
America, and this again in all classes, you will find some of the
softest-mannered gentlemen in the world.
I was so wet when I got back to Mitchell's toward the evening, that
I had simply to divest myself of my shoes, socks, and trousers, and
leave them behind for the benefit of New York city.
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