What is more beautiful or meet to be taken to the bosom than the Englishman? Everybody loves him; his goings to and fro upon the earth are as the progresses of one who has done all men good. He drops fatness and blessings as he walks. He smiles benignity and graciousness and "I-am-glad-to-see-you-all-looking-so-well." And before him runs one in plush, crying, "Who is the most popular man of this footstool?" And all the people shall rejoice and say, "The Englishman--God bless him!" Hence it comes to pass that in whatever part of the world the Englishman may find himself, he has a feeling that he is thoroughly at home. "I am as welcome as flowers in May," he says. "These pore foreigners, these pore 'eathen are glad to see me. They never have any money, pore devils! and were it not for our whirring spindles at home, I verily believe they would have nothing to wear." In brief, the Englishman abroad is always in a sort of Father Christmassey, Santa Claus frame of mind. He eats well, he drinks well, and he sleeps well. He calls for the best, and he PAYS for it. It is a wonderful thing to do, and it goes straight to the hearts of the "pore foreigner" and the "pore 'eathen." This, at any rate, is the Englishman's own view. It is a pleasing, consoling, and stimulating view, and it would ill become an unregenerate outsider rudely to disturb it. Indeed, I question whether the Englishman in his blindness and adipose conceit would allow you to disturb it. When persons in France say, "_A bas l'Anglais_," your fat Englishman smiles, and says, "Little boys!" When people put rude pictures of him on German postcards, he smiles again, and says that the flowing tide of public opinion in Germany is entirely with him. When Dutch farmers propose to throw him into the sea, he becomes very red in the neck, splutters somewhat, and says, "I'm sure they will make excellent subjects in time." And when the savage Americans desire to chaw him up and swallow him, he says, "You astonish me. I have always been under the impression that blood was thicker than water." His desire is to live at peace with all men; but his notion of peace is to have his hand in both your pockets and no questions asked. He owns two-thirds of the habitable globe (_vide_ the geography books), and every pint of sea is his (_pace_ the popular song); he owns also everything that is worth owning. He is the Pierpont Morgan of the universe. Who could help loving him?