Not that I am sanguine enough to expect I shall irritate Englishmen. Your Englishman is far too cock-sure of the natural superiority of Britons to Foreigners, the natural superiority of England to Abroad, ever to be irritated by even the gentlest criticism. He accepts it all with lordly indifference. He brushes it aside as the elephant might brush aside the ineffective gadfly. No proboscis can pierce that pachydermatous hide of his. If you praise him to his face, he accepts your praise as his obvious due, with perfect composure and without the slightest elation. If you blame him in aught, he sets it down to your ignorance and mental inferiority. You say to him, "Oh, Englishman, you are great; you are wise; you are rich beyond comparison. You are noble; you are generous; you are the prince among nations." He smiles a calm smile, and thinks you a very sensible fellow. But you add, "Oh, my lord, if I may venture to say so, there is a smudge on your nose, which I make bold to attribute to the settlement of a black on your intelligent countenance." He is not angry. He is not even contemptuously amused. He responds, "My friend, you are wrong. There is never a smudge on my immaculate face. No blacks fly in London. The sky is as clear there in November as in August. All is pure and serene and beautiful." You answer, "Oh, my lord, I admit the force of your profound reasoning. You light the gas at ten in the morning only to show all the world you can afford to burn it." At that, he gropes his way along Pall Mall to his club, and tells the men he meets there how completely he silenced you. And yet, My Lord Elephant, there is use in mosquitoes. Mr. Mattieu Williams once discovered the final cause of fleas. Certain people, said he, cannot be induced to employ the harmless necessary tub. For them, Providence designed the lively flea. He compels them to scratch themselves. By so doing they rouse the skin to action and get rid of impurities. Now, this British use of the word Abroad is a smudge on the face of the otherwise perfect Englishman. Perchance a mosquito-bite may induce him to remove it with a little warm water and a cambric pocket-handkerchief.