“No.”
“What I don’t understand is why they should make you take oath to a thing and then rummage through your trunks as though they didn’t believe you.”
“It’s an outrage—an infernal outrage,” said George. “Every time the Government does it the spirit of American institutions is insulted.”
“I haven’t much with me this time, anyway; they can hardly expect that a person will go to Europe for six months and not bring back more than one hundred dollars’ worth of things,” continued Miss Golightly artlessly. “One might almost as well stay at home. It isn’t as if I bought them to sell. They are my own ownty donty effects, and I’ve no intention of paying the Government one cent on them if I can help it. And they charge one for presents. Of course, I won’t pay on presents I have bought to give other people. That would simply make them cost so much more.”
“The whole thing is a wretched and humiliating farce,” was George’s not altogether illuminating comment on this naive revelation of the workings of the female mind. He spoke doggedly, and then hummed the refrain of a song as though to keep up his courage.
“Well, I’ll go and take my turn,” he said, with the air of aristocratic urbanity which made him a favorite in social circles.
Miss Golightly detained him to add: “If you find any better method, I wish you’d let me know. It seemed the simplest way not to declare anything, and to trust to luck.”
So great was the bustle and confusion that George was not conscious of the presence of his lively companion again until he heard her voice in his ear two hours later on the pier or platform where the baggage from the Meteoric was being inspected.
“Well,” she said under her breath, “I’m all through. They gave me a jewel of a man. And you?”
“I’ve had no trouble.” George spoke with nonchalance as if to imply that he had expected none. Out of the corner of his eye he was following the actions of the custom-house official allotted to him who was chalking his examined trunks with the hieroglyphics which signified that the Government had released its grip on them.