response of Tommy, thus appealed to. Even in trying
circumstances, even when serious misfortune overtakes the
youthful American, his _aplomb_, his confidence in his own
opinion, does not wholly forsake him. Such a one was found
weeping in the street. On being asked the cause of his tears, he
sobbed out in mingled alarm and indignation: "I'm lost; mammy's
lost me; I _told_ the darned thing she'd lose me." The
recognition of his own liability to be lost, and at the same time
the recognition of his own superior wisdom, are exquisitely
characteristic. They would be quite incongruous in the son of any
other soil. In his intercourse with strangers this feeling
exhibits itself in the complete self-possession and _sang-froid_
of the youthful citizen of the Western Republic. He scorns to own
a curiosity which he dare not openly seek to satisfy by direct
questions, and he puts his questions accordingly on all subjects,
even the most private and even in the case of the most reverend
strangers. He is perfectly free in his remarks upon all that
strikes him as strange or reprehensible in any one's personal
appearance or behaviour; and he never dreams that his victims
might prefer not to be criticised in public. But he is quick to
resent criticism on himself, and he shows the most perverted
ingenuity in embroiling with his family any outsider who may
rashly attempt to restrain his ebullitions. He is, in fact, like
the Scottish thistle: no one may meddle with him with impunity.
It is better to "never mind him," as one of the evils under the
sun for which there is no remedy.

Probably this development of the American small boys is due in
great measure to the absorption of their fathers in business,
which necessarily surrenders the former to a too undiluted