you with my personal affairs. And good-day again.'

That afternoon Racksole went with Felix Babylon first to a firm of
solicitors in the City, and then to a stockbroker, in order to carry
out the practical details of the purchase of the hotel.

'I mean to settle in England,' said Racksole, as they were coming
back. 'It is the only country - ' and he stopped.

'The only country?'

'The, only country where you can invest money and spend money
with a feeling of security. In the United States there is nothing
worth spending money on, nothing to buy. In France or Italy, there
is no real security.'

'But surely you are a true American?' questioned Babylon.

'I am a true American,' said Racksole, 'but my father, who began by
being a bedmaker at an Oxford college, and ultimately made ten
million dollars out of iron in Pittsburg - my father took the wise
precaution of having me educated in England. I had my three years
at Oxford, like any son of the upper middle class! It did me good.
It has been worth more to me than many successful speculations. It
taught me that the English language is different from, and better
than, the American language, and that there is something - I
haven't yet found out exactly what - in English life that Americans
will never get. Why,' he added, 'in the United States we still bribe
our judges and our newspapers. And we talk of the eighteenth
century as though it was the beginning of the world. Yes, I shall