"Well, sir," says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. "I ain't got anything in me but sheer American—you can't beat that."
"How'd you manage that, Mame?" I ask her. "Kind of a trick, wasn't it?"
"I don't know what you mean," she says. And went right on over my head, like she does. "Ain't it nice, ladies," she says, "to be living in the very tip-top nation of this world?"
"Except of course England," says Mis' Jimmy Sturgis.
"Why except England?" snaps Mame Holcomb.
"Oh well, we all know England's the grandest nation," says Mis' Sturgis. "Don't the sun never set on her possessions? Don't she rule the wave? Ain't she got the largest city? And all like that?"
Mame looked mad.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know," she says. "But from the time I studied g'ography I always understood that no nation could touch us Americans."
"Why," says Mis' Sturgis, "I love America best. But I never had any doubts that England that my folks came from was the most important country."