ambassadors must wear evening dress resembling closely the attire of
those who are handing the supper or answering the door-bell. An
Englishman saw Mr. Choate at some diplomatic function, standing about in
this evening costume, and said:

"Call me a cab."

"You are a cab," said Mr. Choate, obediently.

Thus did he make known to the Englishman that he was not a waiter.
Similarly in crowded hotel dining-rooms or crowded railroad stations have
agitated ladies clutched my arm and said:

"I want a table for three," or "When does the train go to Poughkeepsie? "

Just as we in America have regular people to attend to these things, so
do they in England; and as the English respect each other's right to
privacy very much more than we do, they resent invasions of it very much
more than we do. But, let me say again, they are likely to mind it only
in somebody they think knows the rules. With those who don't know them it
is different. I say this with all the more certainty because of a fairly
recent afternoon spent in an English garden with English friends. The
question of pronunciation came up. Now you will readily see that with
them and their compactness, their great public schools, their two great
Universities, and their great London, the one eternal focus of them all,
both the chance of diversity in social customs and the tolerance of it
must be far less than in our huge unfocused country. With us, Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, is each a centre. Here you
can pronounce the word calm, for example, in one way or another, and it
merely indicates where you come from. Departure in England from certain