As we drove along in the bright moonlight, after we had determined on our "method of approach" to Peters' mind, I felt confident that with the knowledge and tact of Bainbridge we should certainly succeed in our efforts; and I began to think along other lines. The friendly manner in which I had been treated by all whom I had met in America, from the millionaire coal operator down to the bell-boy, came into my thoughts. I had not been treated as a foreigner, except to my own advantage, the older residents of the town seeming to look upon me more as they might look upon a man from another State of the Union. In America, even the inland towns are cosmopolitan, while in England only the larger cities and seaport towns have that characteristic. I was therefore able to judge of certain questions not only from hearsay, but from actual observation. I noticed, for example, that among the American working-classes there existed a feeling of repugnance for the Chinaman. Of the lower-class Italian, everybody thought enough to keep out of his reach after dark. Germans and Irishmen were numerous, and each individual was taken on his own merits. The English were universally liked, wherever I went. True, there was a little tendency to allude to the glories of Bunker Hill and the like; but this tendency was evinced in a manner rather amusing than objectionable to an Englishman. If there exists in the American heart a drop of bitterness for the English, I never discovered it. I am writing now of the American-born American. I gathered the idea that Frenchmen, as seen in America, were scarcely taken seriously; though all Americans have been systematically educated to respect and admire the French Nation. Of Spaniards, the prevalent idea seemed to be that they were better at arm's length. (Anglo-Saxon literature has been very unkind to the Spaniard.) I did not meet an American that seemed to hate anybody--I do not conceive it possible for an American to harbor the feeling of hatred. As we jogged along, the idea entered my mind that I would, when I returned home, write a treatise on "American Manners and Customs." "No doubt," I said to myself, "I can in the next few minutes procure from Bainbridge enough facts to make quite a book." I afterward abandoned the intention; but at that moment my mind was filled with it. So I decided to ask my companion a few leading questions, noting well his replies. "And I will first," I determined within myself, "inquire into the mooted point concerning the existence of an aristocratic feeling in the United States. Some of our English writers on 'American Manners and Customs,' and our most acute analysts of American character, say that the Americans are great snobs, and are only too glad to claim the possession of even the most distant aristocratic connection;" so I broached the subject to Bainbridge.