20. About Abroad

The place known as Abroad is not nearly so nice a country to live in as
England. The people who inhabit Abroad are called Foreigners. They are
in every way and at all times inferior to Englishmen.

These Post-Prandials used once to be provided with a sting in their
tail, like the common scorpion. By way of change, I turn them out now
with a sting in their head, like the common mosquito. Mosquitoes are
much less dangerous than scorpions, but they're a deal more irritating.

Not that I am sanguine enough to expect I shall irritate Englishmen.
Your Englishman is far too cock-sure of the natural superiority of
Britons to Foreigners, the natural superiority of England to Abroad,
ever to be irritated by even the gentlest criticism. He accepts it all
with lordly indifference. He brushes it aside as the elephant might
brush aside the ineffective gadfly. No proboscis can pierce that
pachydermatous hide of his. If you praise him to his face, he accepts
your praise as his obvious due, with perfect composure and without the
slightest elation. If you blame him in aught, he sets it down to your
ignorance and mental inferiority. You say to him, "Oh, Englishman, you
are great; you are wise; you are rich beyond comparison. You are noble;
you are generous; you are the prince among nations." He smiles a calm
smile, and thinks you a very sensible fellow. But you add, "Oh, my lord,
if I may venture to say so, there is a smudge on your nose, which I make
bold to attribute to the settlement of a black on your intelligent
countenance." He is not angry. He is not even contemptuously amused. He
responds, "My friend, you are wrong. There is never a smudge on my
immaculate face. No blacks fly in London. The sky is as clear there in
November as in August. All is pure and serene and beautiful." You
answer, "Oh, my lord, I admit the force of your profound reasoning. You
light the gas at ten in the morning only to show all the world you can
afford to burn it." At that, he gropes his way along Pall Mall to his
club, and tells the men he meets there how completely he silenced you.

And yet, My Lord Elephant, there is use in mosquitoes. Mr. Mattieu
Williams once discovered the final cause of fleas. Certain people, said
he, cannot be induced to employ the harmless necessary tub. For them,
Providence designed the lively flea. He compels them to scratch
themselves. By so doing they rouse the skin to action and get rid of
impurities. Now, this British use of the word Abroad is a smudge on the
face of the otherwise perfect Englishman. Perchance a mosquito-bite may
induce him to remove it with a little warm water and a cambric
pocket-handkerchief.

To most Englishmen, the world divides itself