to know what the beef that they gave him had been fed
on; no one, even in what seemed the best society, could
talk rationally about preparing a hog for the breakfast
table. People seemed to eat cauliflower without
distinguishing the Denmark variety from the Oldenburg,
and few, if any, knew Silesian bacon even when they tasted
it. And when they took the Duke out twenty-five miles
into what was called the country, there were still no
turnips, but only real estate, and railway embankments,
and advertising signs; so that altogether the obvious
and visible decline of American agriculture in what should
have been its leading centre saddened the Duke's heart.
Thus the Duke passed four gloomy days. Agriculture vexed
him, and still more, of course, the money concerns which
had brought him to America.

Money is a troublesome thing. But it has got to be thought
about even by those who were not brought up to it. If,
on account of money matters, one has been driven to come
over to America in the hope of borrowing money, the
awkwardness of how to go about it naturally makes one
gloomy and preoccupied. Had there been broad fields of
turnips to walk in and Holstein cattle to punch in the
ribs, one might have managed to borrow it in the course
of gentlemanly intercourse, as from one cattle-man to
another. But in New York, amid piles of masonry and
roaring street-traffic and glittering lunches and palatial
residences one simply couldn't do it.

Herein lay the truth about the Duke of Dulham's visit