I do not believe that in their heart of hearts the Americans themselves—that is, the great mass of the people—have any feeling of admiration for the gigantic money-grabbers who rule them. The American has just perception enough to discern that millionaires are not altogether the best possible kind of man. On the other hand, if you take away the country’s millionaires you have robbed her male population of one of its chief objects of envy and its chief subject of blurring conversation. The shadow of each of the fascinating trinity that I have mentioned is as the shadow of a Colossus, and is so enormous that it is almost impossible to pick up an American newspaper or other publication in which they do not figure and figure prominently. Especially is this the case with respect to Mr. Rockefeller, upon whose doings or misdoings every scribbler in America has some comment to offer or some theory to base. The other day I came across a book of essays published in Boston, which contained a review of Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace’s “Man’s Place in the Universe.” And right in the middle of it I found this passage: “When a little child looks out on the Earth he at first thinks it infinite. He looks upon it as unorganised and unrelated. Only with increasing age and understanding can he realise that it is finite and organised. So when Rockefeller as a lad went into the oil business it seemed to him that there was infinite scope for the extension of the oil business,” and so on and so forth. Clearly it is a mighty business to be Rockefeller! [Illustration] CHAPTER III HUMOURISTS American humour has come to be a bugbear in England, pretty much like American canned meats. Twenty years ago, when anybody on this side of the Atlantic wished to be rather crudely and shockingly amused, he sent to the libraries for something American. In that day and generation Mark Twain was at the zenith of his fame and powers, and the names of Artemus Ward and Josh Billings were names to conjure with. Autres temps autres moeurs. The popularity of Mark Twain has suffered woeful eclipse, and Artemus Ward and Mr. Billings have gone clean out of vogue, and are remembered only as the originators of a very tiresome kind of humour which depends on phonetic spelling for its more excruciating effects.