"And then, I suppose," I said, "he will send us another card saying
that the boots are done and so on. And in the meantime I could have
had the boots repaired and worn out again."

Naturally I was for wrapping up the shoes in a piece of newspaper and
setting out straight off to find a cobbler. But my landlord would not
hear of such a thing at all. "Of course you are an American," he said.

I gathered that while such a proceeding might be all right in my
country it wouldn't do in England. He did not want lodgers, I
understood, going in and out of his house with parcels under their
arms. It would reflect on him. He was a man with a lively mind, and
he told me a little story.

"How do you like the new lodger?" asked the first housemaid of the
second.

"Oh, he's very nice indeed," replied the second housemaid. "But he's
not a gentleman. He helped me carry the coals upstairs yesterday."

"Could you spare me a trifle, sir?" asked the errand man in my street.
"I haven't had tea today."

It's a funny thing, that; isn't it?--our just being all "Americans"
(when we are not referred to as "Yankees" or "Yanks"). We are never
United Statesians. It is the "American Ambassador," and the "American
Consul-General." I have even heard Dr. Wilson referred to as the
"President of America."