inflated 'r' and the smothered 'r' never quite harmonise."

"Western money talks good straight New York talk," ventured Miss
Milbrey, with the air of one who had observed in her time.

Shepler grinned, and the parents of the young woman resisted with
indifferent success their twin impulses to frown.

"But the service is so wretched in the West," suggested Oldaker, the
carefully dressed little man with the tired, troubled eyes, whom the
world had been deprived of. "I fancy, now, there's not a good waiter
this side of New York."

"An American," said Percival, "never _can_ make a good waiter or a good
valet. It takes a Latin, or, still better, a Briton, to feel the
servility required for good service of that sort. An American, now,
always fails at it because he knows he is as good as you are, and he
knows that you know it, and you know that he knows you know it, and
there you are, two mirrors of American equality face to face and
reflecting each other endlessly, and neither is comfortable. The
American is as uncomfortable at having certain services performed for
him by another American as the other is in performing them. Give him a
Frenchman or an Italian or a fellow born within the sound of Bow Bells
to clean his boots and lay out his things and serve his dinner and he's
all right enough."

"Hear, hear!" cried Uncle Peter.

"Fancy, now," said Mrs. Drelmer, "a creature in a waiter's jacket
having emotions of that sort!"