CHAPTER XV
AN ECHO OF GREAT DAYS GONE BY
Berengaria tells me that that last chapter is too much like a guide-book. It gives away my nationality at once, she declares, for she, like the rest of her race, believes that the love of guide-books is deeply implanted in every American heart. It may be; I can't say. Anyway, I admit it is in mine. I like to take an intelligent interest in everything, and see all that there is to be seen. Of course, if you can get a man to show you round it is better, but you won't often find a man anything like as informing or intelligent as a guide-book. Anyway, I am not writing a guide-book now, so I will take Berengaria's advice, and shun anything in this chapter in the way of facts, dates, and figures. I will take to lecturing the British public instead. They tell me that the British public likes being lectured, and pays you well for doing it. We shall see just now.
I believe I warned you somewhere that I was bound to cry once more before this book ended, and I am going to do it now, all in a little chapter by
