had quitted the place, and now, to amuse the Ghent citizens, a couple of
little boys came to the cafe and set up a small concert: one played ill
on the guitar, but sang, very sweetly, plaintive French ballads; the
other was the comic singer; he carried about with him a queer, long,
damp-looking, mouldy white hat, with no brim. "Ecoutez," said the waiter
to me, "il va faire l'Anglais; c'est tres drole!" The little rogue
mounted his immense brimless hat, and, thrusting his thumbs into the
armholes of his waistcoat, began to faire l'Anglais, with a song in
which swearing was the principal joke. We all laughed at this, and
indeed the little rascal seemed to have a good deal of humor.

How they hate us, these foreigners, in Belgium as much as in France!
What lies they tell of us; how gladly they would see us humiliated!
Honest folks at home over their port-wine say, "Ay, ay, and very good
reason they have too. National vanity, sir, wounded--we have beaten them
so often." My dear sir, there is not a greater error in the world
than this. They hate you because you are stupid, hard to please,
and intolerably insolent and air-giving. I walked with an Englishman
yesterday, who asked the way to a street of which he pronounced the name
very badly to a little Flemish boy: the Flemish boy did not answer; and
there was my Englishman quite in a rage, shrieking in the child's ear
as if he must answer. He seemed to think that it was the duty of "the
snob," as he called him, to obey the gentleman. This is why we are
hated--for pride. In our free country a tradesman, a lackey, or a
waiter will submit to almost any given insult from a gentleman: in these
benighted lands one man is as good as another; and pray God it may soon
be so with us! Of all European people, which is the nation that has the
most haughtiness, the strongest prejudices, the greatest reserve, the
greatest dulness? I say an Englishman of the genteel classes. An honest
groom jokes and hobs-and-nobs and makes his way with the kitchen-maids,