MAINLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 19

not widely enough to open my vision to the
immense and heterogeneous reality covered by
the word«America. Perhaps I fancied myself an
experienced traveller in the country, but I was
experienced only in the sense that I could find my
way about, knew the technique of the railroads
and hotels, so far as a traveller needs to know it,
could order my meals with some knowledge of
what I was ordering—for instance, that if I
ordered roast beef, I should get four times as much
as I could eat—and not make the mistake of under-
tipping the waiter,

Mr. Bryce (afterwards Lord Bryce), whom I
had known in England, was then newly installed
as pur Ambassador at Washington. My business
requiring me to see him, I lunched with him one
day at the Embassy and I remember him gently
warning me, after listening to some remarks of
mine, against thinking I knew more about
America than I really did, which warning I have
never forgotten and hope to keep steadily before
me in the course of writing this book.

I was by no means an important visitor either
in Washington or anywhere else, but my business
was sufficiently important to cause my American
friends, especially in the universities, to get up
occasional dinner parties at which I was the guest
of honour. As a warning to Englishmen
accorded this kind of honour by Americans per-
haps the folfowing incident, taken from my diary
of 1907, may have its use. Being invited to a