As Raine had nothing particular to reply to this philosophy, and as he saw that Mr. Hockmaster would be more entertaining as a talker than as a listener, he uttered a polite commonplace by way of antistrophe, and the American again took up his parable. He spoke well and fluently. Behind the ingenuousness of his remarks there generally lurked a touch of incisiveness, which stimulated his listener's interest. His manners were those of a gentleman. Raine began to like him. “What part of England do you come from?” he asked at length. “Oxford.” “The University?” “Yes.” “I haven't been there yet. I've been through Cambridge. But Oxford I am keeping until I get back. Your English institutions interest me more than anything in Europe. It's a cumbrous old bit of machinery, and won't stand comparison with ours; but we seem to live for the sake of our institutions, whereas you let yours rip and make use of them when they serve your purpose.” He lit another cigar from the stump of the old one, and continued,-- “I come from Chicago. It is a go-ahead place, and, if it were near the sea, could become the capital of the world, when Universal Federation sets in. I love it, as perhaps you love Oxford. You have literature--'_literae humaniores_' you call it at Oxford--in your blood, and I have business in mine. I am a speculator in a small way. I have just floated a company--got it shipshape before I sailed--for a patent process of making white lead. Now, I am as keen upon that white lead as if it were a woman. It has kept me awake at nights, and danced before my eyes during the day. I have dreamed of every ship flying American colours painted with my white lead. To make a pile out of it was quite secondary to the poetry of it. Now I bet you don't see any poetry at all in a patent white lead process--in making the land hum with it.” “What about the neat glamour?” asked Raine, smiling. “Ah! There's a difference. I have got this all out of my own head. It is a bit of _me_. Whereas the Alps aren't--” He stared at them innocently--“Not a little bit.” The sound of the gong for the mid-day meal reached them, resonant through the rarefied air. They rose and walked together towards the hotel. “I guess I'll come and sit next to you, if you have no objection,” said Mr. Hockmaster. “Do,” replied Raine cordially, “I shall be delighted.”