There was a very pleasant American gentleman in the same carriage with us, with whom we made good friends. I had by that time learned enough of the American language to say, offering him a cigar, “Do you use tobacco, sir?” “Yes, sir,” he replied, politely accepting the offer, “I do. For I smoke and I snuff and I chew; and if it had pleased Heaven to decree that there should be a fourth way of using tobacco, I guess I should have used it that way also.” It is always comforting to see such respect paid to the decrees of Heaven. St. Louis is, as cities go in America, quite venerable. Founded by the Louisiana Fur Company in 1764, it was just ninety-nine years old at the time of our visit. We had to spend a day there in order to deliver certain letters, which were to procure us facilities for hunting further West, and a most amusing day it proved to be. Our cicerone was a local gentleman who had been warned of our coming, and was kindness itself. Only one thing he expected in return, and that was boundless, literally boundless, admiration of St. Louis and all that was in it. In our secret hearts we were not much impressed; wealth, dinginess and dust struck as the chief features of the city; but our friend found subject for self-gratification even in the dust. “There, sir!” he seemed to say, “I’ll trouble you to show me such dust as this in any of your played-out old European cities.” He offered us refreshment in the shape of a bottle of “Imperial,” a light, sparkling wine rather like perry. “This, sir, is some of our native prŏdūce. How do you find it compare with the vintages of Champagne? I am told that it is greatly admired at Paris, sir.” We vowed that no such wine had been tasted since the days of Noah. Our friend was gratified. In America the word good is insufficient; you must say that everything is the best; less praise is an insult and an ignorant insult at that. One thing he admitted that St. Louis had never been able to achieve. They could defeat Reims and Épernay, but a champagne bottle they could not make; some element was wanting which would enable their glass to stand the pressure. So a roaring trade was done in secondhand bottles from Europe. We drove through the city and into the suburbs, composed for the most part of neat little villas, some detached, some semi-detached, standing in tiny gardens. Standing before a clean little white house with green shutters, and adorned at the entrance with some plaster of Paris statuary, our cicerone said: “These are the residences of our rich townsmen. How do they compare with the mansions of your aristocracy in London?” I was foolish enough to say that they seemed to me a little small. He smiled a smile of pity at the insular jealousy of the Old World.