"Do you think she is American?" I said, dubiously. I couldn't see her
feet. "She might be French. She talks all over."

"No. She is an American girl. See how thin she is. The French are
short and fat."

"Look at her face," I said, enviously. "How animated it is. See how it
seems to stand out among all the other faces."

"Yet she is only amusing herself. See how stolid that creature looks
that she is wasting all her vitality on."

"She has told him some joke and she is laughing at it. He has put his
monocle in his other eye in his effort to see the point. He will get
it by the next boat. Wish she'd come and tell that joke to me. I'd
laugh at it."

My sister eyed me critically.

"You don't look as if you could laugh," she said.

"I wonder what would happen if I should fall dead and drop over into
the lap of that fat elephant in pink silk with the red neck," I said,
musingly.

"She wouldn't even wink," said my sister, laughingly. "But if you
struck her just right you would bounce clear up here again and I could
catch you."