He asked his host what he was to do.
"I advise you to go home," said the host.
The moral here is not that all hosts in England would have treated a guest so, or that all American hosts would have met the situation so well as that Boston gentleman: but too many English used to be socially brutal--quite as much so to each other as to us, or any one.

One should bear that in mind.

I know of nothing more English in its way than what Eton answered to Beaumont (I think) when Beaumont sent a challenge to play cricket: "Harrow we know, and Rugby we have heard of.

But who are you ?" That sort of thing belongs rather to the Palmerston days than to these; belongs to days that were nearer in spirit to the Waterloo of 1815, which a haughty England won, than to the Waterloo of 1914-18, which a humbler England so nearly lost.
Turn we next the other way for a look at ourselves.

An American lady who had brought a letter of introduction to an Englishman in London was in consequence asked to lunch.