Then she spoke suddenly.
“Why do foreigners always say ‘yes’ at the end of every question that they ask in English? I get so tired of it, it’s so superfluous. Why do they do it?”
He reflected.
“It is polite,” he said, after a moment. “I ask you, ‘Do I bore you?’ and then I ask you, ‘Do I?’”
“But why do you think that it is polite to ask me twice?”
He reflected again, and then replied:
“You are equally droll in English; you are even more droll in English, I think. You say, ‘You will go to walk, will you not?’ and the ’not’ makes no sense at all.”
It was her turn to reflect, and be forced to acquiesce.
“Yes, that is true.”
“And anyway,” he went on, “it is polite for me to ask you twice anything, because that shows that I am twice anxious to please you.”