"That, I believe, is a characteristic of the English!" said Phil.
"You will have a chance to see a real English home. It was June when I was there, too."
Dr. Sanford fell into reminiscence about his own trip of thirty years ago, until he was interrupted by the arrival of Phil's trunk.
"In the guest room," said the mother, coming in from the kitchen.
"My own old room!" urged Phil, and she capitulated joyously.
Her call came up the stairs when dinner was ready as it had a thousand times. The cloth was laid on the side veranda, with the setting sun their candelabra and their champagne the rare New England air, which makes one live an hour in a minute. It is not for history to say how much shortcake Phil ate. Jane wondered if he had had anything to eat all the time he had been away. He and his mother did the talking, while Dr. Sanford listened. The twilight still held when a motor came up the drive.
"Peter! I was sure he'd call as soon as he heard you were here," said the mother.
The nervous little man who came around the corner of the house gave every sign of surprise at seeing Philip, though his dry, "Back, eh?" as he shook hands with Phil was hardly effusive. But Peter was not given to effusion about anything except his own projects, and they were so interesting that he could never change the subject. He was off about the clubhouse as soon as he sat down, directing his talking to Dr. and Mrs. Sanford and quite overlooking Phil's presence.
"System is the great thing, system without sentiment!" he began, in his pet phrase; "systematic economy of space, time, energy, and money, which means more money. Got the question of baths settled for my clubhouse. Showers—no waste, no favouritism. You put two cents in the slot and you get three quarts hot for soaping and another cent and you get three gallons cold for shower. Those that don't want to soap pay only one cent. Get it? Those that take only the cold don't have to pay for heating for the others. Everybody pays for what he gets—-justice, equality, democracy, and the square deal for all. Those that don't bathe often can put in another two cents and get six quarts for soaping, without sponging on the fellows that bathe every day. Anybody that wants to remain dirty—individual rights respected. Took the idea to one of those scientific socialist professors and he thought it was all right, only, so far as I could make out from his rigmarole, he thought the State ought to put the cents in the slot and the employers earn the cents for the State. I told him Peter Smithers wasn't any socialist; he didn't believe in a pap-fed proletariat. Now, take another thing—I tell you I'm giving a lot of thought to this——"
"Have you laid the cornerstone of the clubhouse yet?" Phil asked.