Nancy rested her elbows on the table with a protesting bump.
“There you go Britishing me again!” she said hotly. “You said you wouldn’t do it. Even if I am an American, I do know enough not to say cracker. That was one of the few lessons I learned at my mother’s knee. But there aren’t any cracker-biscuits here. I was referring to these others.”
Barth glanced anxiously about the table. Aside from the tray, there were two plates upon the table, and one of the two held tiny strips of toasted bread. All told, there were exactly eight of the strips, each amounting to a mouthful and a half, and Nancy had just been out at the Cove Fields, playing golf.
Nancy pointed to the other plate.
“I mean those—biscuits,” she said conclusively and with emphasis.
“Those? Oh. But those aren’t biscuits.”
“What do you call them, then? Buns?” Nancy inquired, with scathing curiosity.
“Buns? Oh, no. Those are scones.”
This time, Nancy fairly bounced in her chair.
“They are nothing in this world but common, every-day American soda biscuits,” she said, as she helped herself to the puffiest and the brownest. “You are in America now, Mr. Barth, and there is no sense in your putting British names to our cooking. Will you have a biscuit?”