to bicycling. The bridge man is coming to call, too. I made him a
diagram of Breadalbane Terrace, and a plan of the hall and
staircase, on my dinner-card. He was distinctly ungrateful; in
fact, he remarked that he had been born in this very house, but
would not trust himself to find his way upstairs with my plan as a
guide. He also said the American vocabulary was vastly amusing, so
picturesque, unstudied, and fresh."

"That was nice, surely," I interpolated.

"You know perfectly well that it was an insult."

"Francesca is very like that young man," laughed Salemina, "who,
whenever he engaged in controversy, seemed to take off his flesh and
sit in his nerves."

"I'm not supersensitive," replied Francesca, "but when one's
vocabulary is called picturesque by a Britisher, one always knows he
is thinking of cowboys and broncos. However, I shifted the weight
into the other scale by answering `Thank you. And your phraseology
is just as unusual to us.' `Indeed?' he said with some surprise.
`I supposed our method of expression very sedate and uneventful.'
`Not at all,' I returned, `when you say, as you did a moment ago,
that you never eat potato to your fish.' `But I do not,' he urged
obtusely. `Very likely,' I argued, `but the fact is not of so much
importance as the preposition. Now I eat potato WITH my fish.'
`You make a mistake,' he said, and we both laughed in spite of
ourselves, while he murmured, `eating potato WITH fish--how
extraordinary.' Well, the bridge man may not add perceptibly to the
gaiety of the nations, but he is better than the Reverend Ronald. I