“Yes. My brother Charles and myself.”
“None whatever. Your father doesn’t mind, does he?”
“No, he doesn’t mind.”
So at three Percy and Charles appeared at the window. Their faces were eager with anticipation and I went at once to get my cap and coat. We struck out along a road between green grass, and although it was December you would have thought it April or May. The atmosphere was warm and tinged with the faintest, most delicate haze. A lovely green moss, very fine, like powdered salt, was visible on the trunks of the trees. Crows were in the air, and robins—an English robin is a solemn-looking bird—on the lawns. I heaved a breath of delight, for after days of rain and chill this burst of golden light was most delicious.
On the way, as I was looking about, I was being called upon to answer questions such as: “Are there any trees like these in Amáyreeka? Do you have such fine weather in Amáyreeka? Are the roads as good as this in Amáyreeka?”
“Quite as good as this,” I replied, referring to the one on which we were walking, for it was a little muddy.
The way lay through a patch of nearly leafless trees, the ground strewn thick with leaves, and the sun breaking in a golden shower through the branches. I laughed for joy at being alive—the hour was so fine. Presently, after going down a bank so steep that it was impossible not to run if you attempted to walk fast, we came to an open field, the west border of which was protected by a line of willows skirting the banks of a flume which gave into the Thames somewhere. Below the small bridge over which we passed was fastened a small punt, that quaint little boat so common on the Thames. Beyond that was a very wide field, fully twenty acres square, with a yellow path running diagonally across it and at the end of this path was Marlowe.
In the meantime my young friends insisted on discussing the possibility of war between America and England and I was kept busy assuring them that England would not be able to do anything at all with the United States. The United States was so vast, I said. It was full of such smart people. While England was attempting to do something with its giant navy, we should be buying or building wonderful ships and inventing marvelous machines for destroying the enemy. It was useless to plead with me as they did that England had a great army and we none. “We can get one,” I insisted, “oh, a much vaster army than you could.”
“And then Can-ee-dah,” insisted Percy wisely, “while you would be building your navy or drilling your army, we should be attacking you through Can-ee-dah.”
“But Canada doesn’t like you,” I replied. “And besides it only has six million people.”