they are so complete and so neat in their landscape that they even sod the cuts. It is like going through a terraced garden."
It may be that the phrase she used was academic, but I am at least reasonable in thinking that the average American would know what she meant. Not one of those eight English people caught even the shadow of her meaning, and when she explained what she meant by "sod your cuts," they said that she meant "turf your cuttings." She replied that "cutting" with us was a greenhouse term and meant a part clipped from a plant or a tree. They said the word "cut" meant a cut of beef or mutton, to which she retorted that we might also use the term "cut" in a butcher shop, but when travelling in a hill country and looking out of the train window it meant the mountain cut. They said they never heard of the word sod, except used as a noun. She replied that she never heard the word "turf" used as a verb. We continued in an amiable wrangle which finally brought out the fact which even the most obstinate of them was obliged to admit, and that is that when traced to its proper root, the Americans speak purer English than the English.
House-boat hospitality we discovered to be conducted on a very irregular plan, for it appeared that the casual afternoon caller always meant tea and sometimes dinner. This is all very well if the people happen to be agreeable and the food holds out, but even I, the least conservative of the three women, am conservative about invitations to guests, nothing being more offensive to me than to be politely forced into a dinner invitation to people I don't want. Another thing, it kept us constantly scurrying for more to eat, as house-boat provisions are all furnished by firms in town, and house-boat owners are expected to let the purveyors know beforehand how many guests to provide for at each meal.
I like English people very much, but I cannot help observing that some who are very well born and are supposed to be exceedingly well bred, take advantage of American hospitality in a way in which they would never dream of pursuing with their English hosts. For instance, Americans were very free in remaining so dangerously close to the dinner hour that we were pushed into inviting them to remain, but never once did they make it obligatory to invite them to remain over night, while no less than half a dozen times during Henley week our English friends said to Jimmie:
"I say, old man, beastly work getting back to town. Can't you put us up for the night?"
As this occurred when every stateroom was filled, even Bee's sacred duke being among the number of our guests, these self-invited ones remained in every instance when they knew that it would force Jimmie to sleep upon a bench in the dining-room and be seriously inconvenienced. Toward the end of the week this supreme selfishness which I have noticed so often in otherwise worthy English gentlemen annoyed me to such an extent that with one Englishman who had thus insisted upon dispossessing Jimmie for the second time I resolved to make a test. So I said to him:
"Of course it's a little hard on Jimmie, your way of turning him out of his stateroom to sleep on the table, so, as turn about is fair play, if you've quite decided to remain over night, my sister and I will let you have our room and we will sleep on the benches in the dining-room. Jimmie doesn't get much sleep you know—we keep it up so late, and of course you always wake him up when you turn out for your swim at six o'clock in the morning, so if you will promise not to disturb us until seven, and go out through the kitchen for your swim, you can have our room for to-night."
"Oh, I say!" he replied, "that's awfully jolly of you. It is a beastly shame to turn the old man out of his bed two nights in one week, but your boat is the only one on the river where a fellow feels at home, you know. Besides that, I couldn't get back to town before ten o'clock to-night if I started now, and where would I get my dinner? And if I wait to get my dinner here, I'd either have to sleep at Henley or be half the night in getting home. So you see I've got to stay, and thanks awfully for letting me have your room."
Bee, who was standing near, pushed her veil up and cleared her throat. She looked at me.
"Did you ever in all your life?" she said.
"No, I never did," I said. "I never, never did."
"Never did what?" said the English gentleman.
"I never saw anybody like you in a book or out of it, but I suppose there are ten thousand more just as good-looking as you are; just as tall and well built and selfish."
"Selfish," he blurted out with a very red face. "What is there selfish about me, I should like to know? You offered me your room, didn't you?"
"Yes, she offered it," said Bee, sitting on a little table and tucking her feet on a chair. "She offered it to you just to see if you'd take it—just to see how far you would go. You haven't known my sister very long, have you? Why, she'd no more let you have her room than I would let Jimmie turn himself out a second time for you. If you stay to-night you'll be the one to sleep in the dining-room on that narrow bench."
"Oh, I say," he said, turning still redder, "I can't do that, you know. It would be so very uncomfortable. It is very narrow."
"You can lie on your side," said Bee. "You aren't too thick through that way, and we three women have decided to allow Jimmie to go to bed early to-night. We'll make it as comfortable as we can for you, and you'll get fully three hours' sleep, perhaps four. It is all Jimmie would get if he slept there."
"Why, I don't believe that the old man will let me sleep there. I think he'd rather I had his room. He and his wife were so awfully good to me when I was in America. I stayed two months at their place and they entertained me royally."
"Where's your wife?" I said, suddenly.
"She's in our town house," he answered.
"And that's in Upper Brooke Street?" said Bee.
"And where's your sister, the Honourable Eleanor?" I said.
"What's that got to do with it?" said our friend.
"Nothing," I said. "I just wondered if you'd noticed that, every single time we have been in London for the past two years, neither your sister nor your wife has ever called on Mrs. Jimmie; although, as you have just admitted, you stayed two months with them in America. All that you have done in return for the mountain trip that Jimmie arranged for you, taking you in a private car to hunt big game, taking you fishing and arranging for you to see everything in America that you wanted, when you know that Jimmie isn't rich judged by the largest fortunes in America—all, all I say, that you have done for him in return for everything he did for you was to put him up at your club and take them to the races twice, and even though you saw your wife at a distance you never introduced them, although once you stopped and spoke to her. Now, what do you think of yourself?"
"I think—I think," he stammered.
"No, you don't think," said Bee. "You flatter yourself."
He stared at us helplessly, but we were enjoying ourselves too maliciously to let up on him.
"I never was talked to so in my life," he said.
"No, perhaps not," I said, pleasantly. "But it has done you good, hasn't it? Confess now, don't you feel a little better?"
His face, which was very red at all times, grew a little more claret coloured, and he evidently wanted very much to get angry, but Bee and I were so very cheerful, almost affectionate in our manner of mentally skinning him, that he couldn't seem to pull himself together.
"He'll never stay after that," said Bee, complacently, to me afterward. But he did stay, and although Jimmie was furious, he had every intention of letting him have his bedroom again, which Bee and I so
