He has no respect even for the quiescent evening hour, devoted to
cigarettes on the terrace after _table d'hôte_, and he is not to
be overawed by a look. It is a constant source of wonder to the
thoughtfully inclined how the American man is evolved from the
American boy; it is a problem much more knotty than the
difficulty concerning apple-dumplings which so perplexed "Farmer
George." No one need desire a pleasanter travelling companion
than the American man; it is impossible to imagine a more
disagreeable one than the American boy.

The American small boy is precocious; but it is not with the
erudite precocity of the German Heinecken, who at three years of
age was intimately acquainted with history and geography ancient
and modern, sacred and profane, besides being able to converse
fluently in Latin, French, and German. We know, of course, that
each of the twenty-two Presidents of the United States gave such
lively promise in his youth that twenty-two aged friends of the
twenty-two families, without any collusion, placed their hands
upon the youthful heads, prophesying their future eminence. But
even this remarkable coincidence does not affect the fact that
the precocity of the average transatlantic boy is not generally
in the most useful branches of knowledge, but rather in the
direction of habits, tastes, and opinion. He is not, however,
evenly precocious. He unites a taste for jewelry with a passion
for candy. He combines a penetration into the motives of others
with an infantile indifference to exposing them at inconvenient
times. He has an adult decision in his wishes, but he has a
youthful shamelessness in seeking their fulfilment. One of his
most exasperating peculiarities is the manner in which he
querulously harps upon the single string of his wants. He sits