And it is no wonder that the ignorance of Englishmen about America and the American ignorance of England are monumental, stupendous, amazing, passing understanding.

I have on my mantelpiece a statuette of Benjamin Franklin, an excellent and unmistakable likeness which was made here during his lifetime; and the inscription burnt on its base is _Geo.Washington_.It serves me many a good turn with my English friends.

I use it as a measure of their ignorance of us.

Of course this is a mere little error of a statuette-maker, an error, moreover, of a hundred years ago.

But it tells the story of to-day also.