“Great Scott!”
“You know what that is, don’t you? Helping to sort out and assimilate the flotsam and jetsam of the foreign element, and imbue it with sturdy American principles, and all that.”
Mr. Hiltze laughed.
“Perhaps you do not understand the new great movement of Americanization,” she said with dignity. “It is the one immense fine movement of the day. It is to effect the amalgamation of all the riff-raff of humanity into a new America.” Eveley did not mention the quotation marks which circled her words.
“That is wonderful,” he said warmly. “It is a great surprise and a great pleasure, to find women of your type taking an interest in this progressive movement.”
Eveley leaned excitedly toward him. “Oh, Mr. Hiltze, are you interested in it, too?”
“None more so, though like yourself I feel the best work is done silently and unobtrusively, and I prefer not to be exploited from the housetops.”
“Oh, this gives me courage again—and I had nearly lost it. Have you been working to-night? Are you through for the evening?”
“Yes, and if your labors have been as exhaustive and soul-wracking as mine, perhaps you can spare an hour for nourishment with me at the Grant. Of all the jobs in the world! Selling motors is a game beside it.”
“We agree again. I think it was rather foolish of me to tackle it in the beginning. I haven’t brains enough. Those boys may be flotsam and jetsam and all that, but they know more about patriotism than I do. Why, one little Italian, the cutest thing, with dimples and curly hair, told me more about country-love than I could have thought up in a month. He says, isn’t it patriotic for them to come here and pick up all the good they can, and take it back to enrich their own country? And when you come right down to it, isn’t it? Anyhow, the little Italians and Mexicans and Jews and I have organized an Irish-American Baseball Team, and I suppose we are amalgamating something into something. I think they are amalgamating me. I feel terribly amalgamated right now.”