"Well, but consider," said Benson, who was always ready to take up any side of an argument--it was one of the first criticisms Ashburner made on American conversation, that the men seemed to talk for victory rather than for truth--"it stands to reason, that an intelligent married woman must be better able than a girl to converse with a mature man, and her conversation must have more attraction for him. As to our boys coming out too soon, doubtless they do, but that depends not on the persons ready to receive them, but on the general social system of the country which pushes them into the world so early. For instance, I was left my own master at twenty-one. So, too, with the want of proper progress and growth in knowledge of the men. It is and must be so with the man of fashion every where, for he is not occupied in learning things that have a tendency to develop or improve his mind, but the contrary. I myself have seen Frenchmen of fifty as easily amused and as eager after trifles as boys." "Frenchmen?" sneered the other; "yes, but they _are_ boys all their lives, except in innocence." "Very amusing and pleasant, at any rate; the best people for travelling acquaintances that I know." "Exactly--very pleasant to know for a little while. I have met with a great many Frenchmen who impressed me favorably, and I used to think as you say, what amusing people they were, but I never had occasion to live with one for any length of time without finding him a bore and a nuisance. A Frenchman turns himself inside out, as it were, at once. He shows off all that there is to show on first acquaintance. You see the best of him immediately, and afterwards there is nothing left but repetitions of the same things, and eternal dissertations on himself and his own affairs. He is like a wide, shallow house, with a splendid front externally, and scanty furniture inside." "Very true, and an Englishman (don't blush Ashburner) is like a suite of college-rooms in one of his own university towns--a rusty exterior, a dark, narrow passage along which you find your way with difficulty; and when you do get in, jolly and comfortable apartments open suddenly upon you; and as you come to examine them more carefully, you discover all sorts of snug, little, out-of-the-way closets and recesses, full of old books and old wine, and all things rich and curious. But the entrance is uninviting to a casual acquaintance. Now, when you find an American of the right stamp (here Benson's hands were accidentally employed in adjusting his cravat), he hits the proper medium, and is accessible as a Frenchman and as true as an Englishman." Ashburner was going to express a doubt as to the compatibility of the two qualities, when Harrison struck in again.