"HUNDRED PER CENT" AMERICAN 109

or that he thought " all this talk about 100 per
cent Americanism was bunk "—a reason given
me on three separate occasions by gentlemen with
whom I conversed in the smoking-rooms of Pull-
man cars. One, who appeared to be a philoso-
pher, said that the loo-percenter was an ideal, not
a reality; that I must not look for him on the
earth, because, like Plato's City of God, he exists
only in heaven; and then, checking himself, " or
perhaps in hell "—a quick transition which I have
often observed in American speech.

Sometimes in answer to urgent request, my
friends would say, " The thing's easy enough.
There are lots of people in this city who claim
to be loo-percenters, lots: indeed (looking round)
there are three or four of them in this hotel lobby
at the present moment; that big man you see
coming out of the dining-room—he's running
for Governor—is one of them; but, to tell you
the truth, we're a little ashamed of their goings
on and, if you don't mind, would rather introduce
you to someone else. For instance, there's the
President of the North Western Road and his
daughter sitting on that settee to your left. Come
along; you'll like to meet them." Indeed I came
to suspect a kind of secret conspiracy among my
friends to keep the loo-percenter concealed, or
at least to draw a red herring across the trail
whenever I got on his scent.

In one city I was about to visit I was told in
advance that I should find the mayor an out-