"That's all about you, I see," Sally finished up. "The rest is about Cousin Katherine and me. It says we've come back with a touch of the Piccadilly accent; and it criticises my nose, and the way Cousin Katherine puts on her hat. It describes this house all wrong, and says the Newport cottage 'knocks spots' out of Mrs. Van der Windt's cottage. It also mentions Cousin Potter, and calls him 'one of our Army Dudes.' But we don't mind, and you mustn't. Everybody reads The Flashlight, for the sake of the shocks, but nobody believes its flashes."
"Still, you must have said something to the man," remarked Mrs. Ess Kay.
"I only said 'No, but--' or 'Yes, but--,'" I insisted. "Truly and truly nothing else. And oh, there was a Bat, too, who tried to talk to me."
"Great Scott! the Evening Bat," chortled Mr. Parker. "Look out for something rich to-night."
"Can't he be stopped?" I asked.
"Might as well try to stop Niagara--with a tin can; the less you said, the more the Bat will say. But it doesn't matter. Nobody'll care. Reporters are paid by the yard for imagination; information's gone out, though I do hear you use it still on your side."
I was just going to defend information (British) at the expense of imagination (American), when I remembered that the "Army Dude"--which sounds rather like something you might buy at the Stores--had sent me up an enormous bouquet of violets as big as a breakfast plate, and that I'd forgotten to thank him. I did so at once, but it seemed that I had blundered.
"Violets?" he echoed. "Must have been some other fellow. I sent you gardenias."
"Oh, then the cards got mixed," I said. "I thought the gardenias were from Mr. Doremus. How kind of you both. I was so surprised to receive such lovely flowers."
"Our American buds are surprised when they don't get them. They would think it a cold day when they didn't have a slight morning haul of flowers--must be out of season ones, or they're no use--new novels, or candy. What do men over on your side of the water do to convince you girls that they think you're as beautiful as you really are?"