"I'd be sorry to be one. Wouldn't you?" He ventured this question, which, if answered, might after all send them on the way towards a more friendly understanding. But he seemed destined to put himself in the wrong—although the girl laughed.
"I am one," she said, "I write stories."
"You're chaffing."
"No, I'm not. Why should you think so?"
"Oh, well, because you don't look as if you wrote."
"Thank you. I suppose you mean that for a compliment. But women who write aren't scare-crows nowadays, if they ever were."
"Well, anyhow, you're too young."
"I've been writing stories—and getting them published, too, ever since I was sixteen. That's some years ago now. Please don't say you wouldn't have thought it! That would be too obvious even for an average American's idea of an average Englishman."
"Are you an average American?"
"Are you an average Englishman?"