Tea is cheap enough, and yet the hostess seldom or never thinks of
ordering up a fresh pot. I believe it is because she is afraid of
the butler."

"I sympathise with you fully, Colonel," said Lady Considine, "and
my withers are unwrung. You do not often honour me with your
presence on Tuesdays, but I am sure I may claim to be one of your
honourable exceptions."

"Indeed you may," said the Colonel. "Perhaps men ought not to
intrude on these occasions; but I have a preference for taking tea
in a pretty drawing-room, with a lot of agreeable women, rather
than in a club surrounded by old chaps growling over the latest job
at the War Office, and a younger brigade chattering about the
latest tape prices, and the weights for the spring handicaps."

"All these little imperfections go to prove that we are not a
nation of cooks," said Van der Roet. "We can't be everything.
Heine once said that the Romans would never have found time to
conquer the world if they had been obliged to learn the Latin
grammar; and it is the same with us. We can't expect to found an
empire all over the planet, and cook as well as the French, who--
perhaps wisely--never willingly emerge from the four corners of
their own land."

"There is energy enough left in us when we set about some purely
utilitarian task," said Mrs. Wilding, "but we never throw ourselves
into the arts with the enthusiasm of the Latin races. I was
reading the other day of a French costumier who rushed to inform a
lady, who had ordered a turban, of his success, exclaiming,