"I supposed we were so European already," returned the gentleman, "that
a European landing among us would think he had got back to his
starting-point in a sort of vicious circle. I am myself so thoroughly
Europeanized in all my feelings and instincts that, do you know, Mrs.
Makely, if I may confess it without offence--"

"Oh, by all means!" cried the hostess.

"When that vast bird which we have been praising, that colossal roast
turkey, appeared, I felt a shudder go through my delicate substance, such
as a refined Englishman might have experienced at the sight, and I said
to myself, quite as if I were not one of you, 'Good Heavens! now they
will begin talking through their noses and eating with their knives.'
It's what I might have expected!"

It was impossible not to feel that this gentleman was talking at me; if
the Americans have a foreign guest, they always talk at him more or less;
and I was not surprised when he said, "I think our friend, Mr. Homos,
will conceive my fine revolt from the crude period of our existence which
the roast turkey marks as distinctly as the graffiti of the cave-dweller
proclaim his epoch."

"No," I protested, "I am afraid that I have not the documents for the
interpretation of your emotion. I hope you will take pity on my ignorance
and tell me just what you mean."

The others said they none of them knew, either, and would like to know,
and the gentleman began by saying that he had been going over the matter
in his mind on his way to dinner, and he had really been trying to lead