"Do you see that ill-conditioned brute; what's he doing here?"
Lionel glanced in the direction indicated.
"I don't know who he is."
"Don't you know Quincey Hooper? the correspondent of the _Philadelphia
Roll-Call_--a cur who toadies every Englishman he meets, and at the same
time sneers at everything English in his wretched Philadelphia rag."
Then Lionel instantly bethought him of Miss Lestrange's hint; was this
the correspondent who was to arouse the interest of the great American
Continent in Lady Adela's forthcoming novel, even as Octavius Quirk was
expected to write about it in England? But surely, with the wide
Atlantic lying between their respective spheres of operation, there was
no need for rivalry? Why did Mr. Quirk still glare in the direction of
the new-comer with ill-disguised, or rather with wholly undisguised,
disdain?
"Why," said he, in his tempestuously frothy fashion, "I've heard that
creature actually discussing with another American what sort of air a
man should assume in entering a drawing-room! Can you conceive of such a
thing? Where _did_ all that alarmed self-consciousness of the modern
American come from--that unceasing self-consciousness that makes the
American young man spend five sixths of his waking time in asking
himself if he is a gentleman? Not from the splendid assurance, the
belief in himself, the wholesome satisfaction of old John Bull.
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