Mr. Hodden shook his head. He knew how it would be, he said.
“Let us leave the reporters. What else do you object to? I want to learn, and so reform my country when I get back.”
“The mad passion of the people after wealth, and the unscrupulousness of their methods of obtaining it, seem to me unpleasant phases of life over there.”
“So they are. And what you say makes me sigh for dear old London. How honest they are, and how little they care for money there! They don’t put up the price 50 per cent. merely because a girl has an American accent. Oh no. They think she likes to buy at New York prices. And they are so honourable down in the city that nobody ever gets cheated. Why, you could put a purse up on a pole in London, just as—as—was it Henry the Eighth—?”
“Alfred, I think!” suggested Buel.
“Thanks! As Alfred the Great used to do.”
Mr. Hodden looked askance at the young woman.
“Remember,” he said, “that you asked me for my opinion. If what I have said is offensive to one who is wealthy, as doubtless you are, Miss Jessop, I most sincerely—”
“Me? Well, I never know whether I’m wealthy or not. I expect that before long I shall have to take to typewriting. Perhaps, in that case, you will give me some of your novels to do, Mr. Hodden. You see, my father is on the Street.”
“Dear me!” said Mr. Hodden, “I am sorry to hear that.”