Next, let me give an account of a personal experience in a Parisian hotel. It was a little, unpretending establishment that I liked for its quiet and for the honest cookery. There was a _table d'hôte_, frequented by a few French people, generally from the provinces, and once there came some English visitors who had found out the merits of the little place. It happened that I had been on the Continent a long time without revisiting England, so when my fellow-countrymen arrived I had foolish feelings of pleasure on finding myself amongst them, and spoke to them in our common English tongue. The effect of this bold experiment was extremely curious, and to me, at the time, almost inexplicable, as I had forgotten that chapter by De Tocqueville. The new-comers were two or three young men and one in middle life. The young men seemed to be reserved more from timidity than pride. They were quite startled and frightened when spoken to, and made answer with grave brevity, as if apprehensive of committing themselves to some compromising statement. With an audacity acquired by habits of intercourse with foreigners, I spoke to the older Englishman. His way of putting me down would have been a charming study for a novelist. His manner resembled nothing so much as that of a dignified English minister,--Mr. Gladstone for example, when he is questioned in the House by some young and presumptuous member of the Opposition. A few brief words were vouchsafed to me, accompanied by an expression of countenance which, if not positively stern, was intentionally divested of everything like interest or sympathy. It then began to dawn upon me that perhaps this Englishman was conscious of some august social superiority; that he might even know a lord; and I thought, "If he does really know a lord we are very likely to hear his lordship's name." My expectation was not fulfilled to the letter, but it was quite fulfilled in spirit; for in talking to a Frenchman (for me to hear) our Englishman shortly boasted that he knew an English duchess, giving her name and place of abode. "One day when I was at ---- House I said to the Duchess of ----," and he repeated what he had said to Her Grace; but it would have no interest for the reader, as it probably had none for the great lady herself. Shade of Thackeray! why wast thou not there to add a paragraph to the "Book of Snobs"?