Names and titles of offices went with many of the prizes, and most of these title-holders were expected to present a busy appearance at times; and, indeed, some among them did work honestly and faithfully.
Bibbs had been very ignorant.

All these simple things, so well known and customary, astonished him at first, and once--in a brief moment of forgetting that he was done with writing--he thought that if he had known them and written of them, how like a satire the plainest relation of them must have seemed! Strangest of all to him was the vehement and sincere patriotism.

On every side he heard it--it was a permeation; the newest school-child caught it, though just from Hungary and learning to stammer a few words of the local language.

Everywhere the people shouted of the power, the size, the riches, and the growth of their city.

Not only that, they said that the people of their city were the greatest, the "finest," the strongest, the Biggest people on earth.