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Walking-Stick Papers by Robert Cortes Holliday
page 91 of 198 (45%)
"Thank you, sir," said the cats' meat man. I saw by the light come
into his eye that he had recognised me. "You are------" he began. "I
know it," I said; "I am."

I looked at the wretched dog. Would he too accuse me? But he ate his
meat and said never a word. Perhaps he was not an Englishman. No, I
think he was a tourist, too, like myself. I was glad I had befriended
him in an alien land.

"What is the price of this?" I asked. "Thri'pence?" I inquired,
reading a sign.

"Three pence," pronounced the attendant very distinctly. It was but
his way of saying, "You are an American."

I went into an office to see a man I know. "How are you?" I said in my
democratic way to the very small office boy. "You are looking better
than when I saw you last," I remarked with pleasant home humour.

"I never saw you before, sir," replied the office boy. "He is an
American," I heard him, apologising for me, tell the typist.

Some considerable while after this I went to this office again. I had
quite forgotten the office boy. I handed him my card. A bright lad,
he. "I'm feeling much better, sir," he said.

In Pall Mall there is a steamship office in the window of which is
displayed a miniature sheet of water. At opposite sides of this little
ocean are small dabs of clay, one labelled England, the other America.
Tiny ships ply back and forth between the two countries. Observers
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