“America is the land of rapid changes,” he said, when I told him that I was that boy, and he added: “You must have changed much, looking as you do like a real American; but we here and our dear old Austria are like all old people; we do not change except to grow older and more decrepit.” He expressed exactly what I felt as I looked to the right and to the left of the train which was taking me to Budapest. Everything seemed to move slowly, with the deliberate step of feeble old age. Budapest looked small, and the suspension bridge, which had nearly taken my breath away eleven years before, when I first saw it, looked puny in comparison with the Brooklyn suspension bridge. I spent no time in looking around to explore the virtues of the Magyar metropolis, but hustled, and presently I was on the boat which eleven years before had brought me to Budapest. I could hardly believe that it was the same boat. It must have shrunk incredibly, I thought, or else my life in America had changed the vision of my eyes. Everything I saw looked small and shrivelled up, and if I had not seen the snow-covered giants of Switzerland as viewed from the top of Titlis, Europe itself might have appeared to me as small and shrivelled up. When supper was served I noticed that everybody had atrocious table manners, even people of high official rank, several of whom I discovered among my fellow passengers. Eleven years before everybody on the boat had looked so high and mighty that I was almost afraid to look at them, but this time I was much tempted to imagine that I was considerably above most of my fellow passengers. I resisted the temptation. It was a good thing that my climbing of the Titlis had nearly floored me; it suppressed much of that haughtiness which naturalized American immigrants bring with them when they visit Europe. * * * * *