The American
 “When you are in a fury it can’t be pleasant.” 

 “I am never in a fury.” 

 “Angry, then, or displeased.” 

 “I am never angry, and it is so long since I have been displeased that I have quite forgotten it.” 

 “I don’t believe,” said Mrs. Tristram, “that you are never angry. A man ought to be angry sometimes, and you are neither good enough nor bad enough always to keep your temper.” 

 “I lose it perhaps once in five years.” 

 “The time is coming round, then,” said his hostess. “Before I have known you six months I shall see you in a fine fury.” 

 “Do you mean to put me into one?” 

 “I should not be sorry. You take things too coolly. It exasperates me. And then you are too happy. You have what must be the most agreeable thing in the world, the consciousness of having bought your pleasure beforehand and paid for it. You have not a day of reckoning staring you in the face. Your reckonings are over.” 

 “Well, I suppose I am happy,” said Newman, meditatively. 

 “You have been odiously successful.” 

 “Successful in copper,” said Newman, “only so-so in railroads, and a hopeless fizzle in oil.” 

 “It is very disagreeable to know how Americans have made their money. Now you have the world before you. You have only to enjoy.” 

 “Oh, I suppose I am very well off,” said Newman. “Only I am tired of having it thrown up at me. Besides, there are several drawbacks. I am not intellectual.” 

 “One doesn’t expect it of you,” Mrs. Tristram answered. Then in a moment, “Besides, you are!” 

 “Well, I mean to have a good time, whether or no,” said Newman. “I am not cultivated, I am not even educated; I know nothing about history, or art, or foreign tongues, or any other learned matters. But I am not a fool, either, and I shall undertake to know something about Europe by the time I have done with it. I feel something under my ribs here,” he added in a moment, “that I can’t explain—a sort of a mighty hankering, a desire to stretch out and haul in.” 

 “Bravo!” said Mrs. Tristram, “that is very 
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