I need hardly say that it was the second letter of which I saw the original, or that it was A. who showed them to me, when they were already several years old but still treasured, and A. was a wealthy man again as a result of that meeting after dinner. A. told me briefly what passed at that meeting. "He gave me a little more than half a million," he said. "Of course he has had it back long ago; but he did not know that he would get it at the time and he took no note or other security from me. At the time it was practically a gift of five hundred thousand dollars." And as I write I can almost hear the English reader saying, "Pooh! the same things are done times without number in England." And I can hear the American, still smarting under the recollection of some needlessly cruel and unfair thrust from the hands of a competitor, smile cynically and say that he would like to tell me certain things that he knows. Of course there are exceptions on either side. It takes, as the American is so fond of saying, "all kinds of men to make a world." It is the same old difficulty of generalising about a nation or drawing up an indictment against a whole people. But I do not think that any man who has engaged for any length of time in business in both countries, who has lived in each sufficiently to absorb the spirit of the respective communities, will dissent from what I have said. Many Englishmen, without knowledge of business in England, go to America and find the atmosphere harder and less friendly than they were accustomed to at home, and come to quite another conclusion. But they are comparing American business life with the social club-and-country-house life of home. Let them acquire the same experience of business circles in England, and then compare the tone with that of business circles in America, and they will change their opinions. Let me recall again what was said above as to the difference in the motives which may impel a man to go into business or trade in the two countries. An Englishman cannot well pretend that he does it with any other purpose than to make money. The American hopes to make money too, but he takes up business as an honourable career and for the sake of winning standing and reputation among his fellows. This being so, business in America has a tendency to become more of a game or a pastime--to be followed with the whole heart certainly--but in a measure for itself, and not alone for the stakes to be won. It is not difficult to see how, in this spirit, it may be easier to forego those stakes--to let the actual money slip--when once you have won the game. * * * * *