They were a study to me in many ways. A little incident I recall. One morning, going out of the hotel, my boots rather tarnished with the everlasting mud—for as they told me that it always rains there except when it snaws, there is always mud—I hailed a boy boot-black with cheeks as red as ripe cherries. While he was doing his job, I asked a policeman near by how much I should give him. “A penny,” he said. On handing this to my little friend, he, raising his cap with all the politeness of a polished courtier said, “Wad ye no gie me the other wing o’ that?” My hair was so thick that his meaning did not penetrate my understanding until he had bowed and gone, and I then realized his idea of the necessity of two wings for anything to fly properly. One great mental fault of mine is nearly always being a little behind time. My best thoughts often come just after their opportunity. I was pleased with the rosy cheeked lasses, so full of health and purity, and I think I rather offended my wife by saying that if I was not already wifed I would try to win one of Scotia’s fair daughters. Then back to England, in a round of sight-seeing and visits among the Britons, where, led by my wife, I was well received, though inwardly I felt with some questioning as to my rank and station. This is the great characteristic of the English. Their first question is, not what you are as a man, in ability, attainments or morals, but what is your standing or caste in “society.” And probably the newest made, the fledglings in society, with the thinnest kind of blue blood in their veins, would be the most exacting, whose pedigree would be greatly damaged by the slightest investigation. This society fad notion of the English, is worse than their oppressive fogs, and, like the sight of a black pall at a funeral, making one tread softly and speak in whispers. Some one, remarking of this, said that when out calling the lady of the house came up close to her without bowing, with a prying, inquisitive look, saying, “I really don’t know who you are,” but after learning the rank of her caller she became amiability itself. To give them their due, when once you are inside their ring, and are acquainted, you know, they are very kind and agreeable. I had often read of the Arctic regions, and traveling to my humor inclined, I suggested to my traveling companion that we go to the extreme, or as far as we could, and see the contrast, if not of Greenland’s icy mountains, then those of Norway, with India’s burning sands. And a contrast it was, so much so that my oriental bones ached with the cold, and I was glad when our steamer turned its prow southward to come under the sun again.