“How disgusting!” said Kate.
“Disgusting!” cried the Judge. “A great deal is disgusting in this country, as you’ll learn if you stay here long. I nearly lost my life on a banana skin; lay in a darkened room for days, between life and death, and lame for life from it.”
“How awful!” said Kate. “What did you do when you fell?”
“What did I do? Just smashed my hip.”
It had truly been a terrible accident, and the man had suffered bitterly.
“You can hardly blame Mexico for a banana skin,” said Owen, elated. “I fell on one in Lexington Avenue; but fortunately I only bruised myself on a soft spot.”
“That wasn’t your head, was it?” said Mrs Henry.
“No,” laughed Owen. “The other extreme.”
“We’ve got to add banana skins to the list of public menaces,” said young Henry. “I’m an American, and I may any day turn bolshevist, to save my pesos, so I can repeat what I heard a man saying yesterday. He said there are only two great diseases in the world to-day—Bolshevism and Americanism; and Americanism is the worst of the two, because Bolshevism only smashes your house or your business or your skull, but Americanism smashes your soul.”
“Who was he?” snarled the Judge.