An American Girl in London

by Sara Jeannette Duncan

'Yes, that kind of person. I think William the Conqueror would make a beautiful cowboy—a regular "Terror of the Canyon."'

'Can't say I see it,' said Mr. Mafferton, fixing his eye upon the bass 'cello at the other end of the room.

'It isn't in that direction,' I said, and Mr. Mafferton became exceedingly red. Then it occurred to me that possibly over here that might be considered impertinent, so I did my best to make up for it. 'A very nice face, isn't it?' I went on. 'What is he particularly noted for, Mr. Mafferton, besides the Curfew, and the Doomsday Book, and introducing old families into England?'

Mr. Mafferton bit his moustache. I had never seen anybody bite his moustache before, though I had always understood from novels that it was done in England. Whether American gentlemen have better tempers, or whether they are afraid of injuring it, or why the habit is not a common one with us, I am unable to say.

'Really, Miss Wick,' Mr. Mafferton responded, with six degrees of frost, 'I—is there nothing about it in the catalogue? He established the only date which would ever stick in my memory—1066. But you mustn't think he brought all the old families in England over with him, Miss Wick—it is incorrect.'

'"I daresay," I said; 'people get such curious ideas about England in America, Mr. Mafferton.' But that did not seem to please Mr. Mafferton either. 'I think they ought to know,' he said, so seriously that I did not like to retaliate with any English misconceptions of American matters. And from what I know of Mr. Mafferton now, I do not think he would have seen the slightest parallel.

'How this brings it all back, I said, as we looked at William the Second, surnamed Rufus, in blue and yellow, with a plain front—'the marks in history at school, and the dates let in at the sides of the pages! "His dead body, with an arrow sticking in it, was found by Purkiss, a charcoal-burner, and carried in a cart to Winchester, where it was buried in the Cathedral." I remember I used to torment myself by wondering whether they pulled the arrow out, because in my history it didn't say they did.'

'It's a fact,' said Mr. Mafferton; 'one always does think of the old chap with the arrow sticking in him. Burne-Jones or one of those fellows ought to paint it—the forest, you know, twilight, and the charcoal-burner in a state of funk. Tremendously effective—though, I daresay, it's been done scores of times.'

'And sold to be lithographed in advertisements!' I added.

'Ah, Miss Wick, that is the utilitarian American way of looking at things!' Mr. Mafferton remarked, jocularly; and I don't think I could have been expected to refrain from telling him that I had in mind a certain soap not manufactured in America.