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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: lie on your lips. I spoke the truth to the evil-minded Custom
House man who turned my most sacred raiment on a floor com-posed
of stable refuse and pine splinters; but the reporter overwhelmed
me not so much by his poignant audacity as his beautiful
ignorance. I am sorry now that I did not tell him more lies as
I passed into a city of three hundred thousand white men. Think
of it! Three hundred thou-sand white men and women gathered in
one spot, walking upon real pavements in front of
plate-glass-windowed shops, and talking something that at first
hearing was not very different from English. It was only when I
had tangled myself up in a hopeless maze of small wooden houses,
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