"That's over with, thank Heaven!" The speaker was a charming woman
from Boston, whose society he had found engrossing during the
voyage--a woman of the polite world, voluble and well informed.

"I just signed and swore to the paper they gave me without reading
it," she added, with a gay shrug of her shoulders, as though she were
well content with this summary treatment of a distasteful matter.
"Have you made your declaration yet?" she asked indifferently.

"No."

"What I don't understand is why they should make you take oath to a
thing and then rummage through your trunks as though they didn't
believe you."

"It's an outrage--an infernal outrage," said George. "Every time the
Government does it the spirit of American institutions is insulted."

"I haven't much with me this time, anyway; they can hardly expect that
a person will go to Europe for six months and not bring back more than
one hundred dollars' worth of things," continued Miss Golightly
artlessly. "One might almost as well stay at home. It isn't as if I
bought them to sell. They are my own ownty donty effects, and I've no
intention of paying the Government one cent on them if I can help it.
And they charge one for presents. Of course, I won't pay on presents I
have bought to give other people. That would simply make them cost so
much more."

"The whole thing is a wretched and humiliating farce," was George's