“Why—uh—we just walked, and we got caught in the rain. Say, Miss Nash was a wonder. She never peeped when she got soaked through—she just laughed and beat it like everything. And we saw a lot of quaint English places along the road—got away from all them tourists—trippers—you know.”
A perfectly strange person, a heavy old man with horn spectacles and a soft shirt, who had joined the group unbidden, cleared his throat and interrupted:
“Is it not a strange paradox that in traveling, the most observant of all pursuits, one should have to encounter the eternal bourgeoisie!”
From the Cockney Greek chorus about the unlighted fire:
“Yes!”
“Everywhere.”
“Uh—” began Mr. Gutch. He apparently had something to say. But the chorus went on:
“And just as swelteringly monogamic in Port Said as in Brum.”
“Yes, that’s so.”
“Mr. Wr-r-renn,” thrilled Mrs. Stettinius, the lady poet, “didn’t you notice that they were perfectly oblivious of all economic movements; that their observations never post-dated ruins?”