Well, the van Squibbers, his hostess explained, were Americans who lived
in London and went everywhere. One certainly did see them everywhere.
They were almost too extraordinary.

Now the American knew quite all about these van Squibbers. He knew also
that in New York, and Boston, and Philadelphia, and in many other places
where existed a society with still some ragged remnants of decency and
decorum left, one would not meet this highly star-spangled family
"everywhere."

The hostess kept it up. Did the American know the Butteredbuns? No? Well,
one met the Butteredbuns everywhere too. They were rather more
extraordinary than the van Squibbers. And then there were the Cakewalks,
and the Smith-Trapezes' Mrs. Smith-Trapeze wasn't as extraordinary as her
daughter--the one that put the live frog in Lord Meldon's soup--and of
course neither of them were "talked about" in the same way that the
eldest Cakewalk girl was talked about. Everybody went to them, of course,
because one really never knew what one might miss if one didn't go.
At length the American said:

"You must correct me if I am wrong in an impression I have received.
Vulgar Americans seem to me to get on very well in London."

The hostess paused for a moment, and then she said:

"That is perfectly true."

This acknowledgment was complete, and perfectly friendly, and after that
all went better than it had gone before.