"It's pretty nice to be home again, isn't it," said Mollie.
"Nice?" echoed the old gentleman. "I can just tell you, Miss Mollie Whistlebinkie, that the finest thing I've seen since I left home, finer than all the oceans in the world, more beautiful than all the Englands in creation, sweeter than all the Frances on the map, lovelier than any Alp that ever poked its nose against the sky, dearer than all the Venices afloat—the greatest, most welcome sight that ever greeted my eyes was my own brass front door knob holding itself out there in the twilight of yesterday to welcome me home and twinkling in the fading light of day like a house afire as if to show it was glad to see me back. That's why the minute I came into the yard I took off my hat and knelt down before that old brass knob and kissed it."
The old man's voice shook just a little as he spoke, and a small teardrop gathered and glistened in a corner of his eye—but it was a tear of joy and content, not of sorrow.
"And then when I turned the knob and opened the door," he went on, "well—talk about your Palaces with all their magnificent shiny floors and gorgeous gold framed mirrors and hall-bedrooms as big as the Madison Square Garden—they couldn't compare to this old parlor of mine with the piano over on one side of the room, the refrigerator in the other, the leak beaming down from the ceiling, and my kitchen-stove peeking in through the door and sort of keeping an eye on things generally. And not a picture in all that 9643 miles of paint at the Loover can hold a candle to my beloved old Washington Crossing the Delaware over my mantel-piece, with the British bombarding him with snow-balls and the river filled to the brim with ice-bergs—no sirree! And best of all, nobody around to leave their aitches all over the place for somebody else to pick up, or any French language to take a pretty little bird and turn it into a wazzoh, or to turn a good honest hard boiled egg into an oof, but everybody from Me myself down to the kitchen-stove using the good old American language whenever we have something to say and holding our tongues in the same when we haven't."
"Hooray for us!" cried Whistlebinkie, dancing with glee.
"That's what I say," said the Unwiseman. "America's good enough for me and I'm glad I'm back."
"Well I feel the same way," said Mollie. "I liked Europe very much indeed but somehow or other I like America best."
"And for a very good reason," said the Unwiseman.
"What?" asked Mollie.