I am compelled to live here.'

A roar of unfeeling laughter greeting her familiar plaint, Madame
Carlotti took a hitch in her gown and reimprisoned some of her person
which had escaped from custody.

'Then,' said Johnston Smyth, 'if we are all of a mind, there is no need
to have a trial. You have all seen the accusation in Mr. Selwyn's eye,
you have considered the unbiassed evidence of the lovely Carlotti'----

'But jurors can't give evidence,' muttered Mr. Dunckley.

'My dear sir, I know she can't, but she did,' said Smyth triumphantly.
'_Oyez, oyez_--all in favour'----

'But,' interrupted the American, 'are we not to hear any one for the
defence?'

'No,' said Smyth, who was thoroughly happy as a self-constituted master
of ceremonies. 'No one would accept the brief.'

'Then,' said Selwyn, 'I apply for the post of counsel for the defence,
for in the limited time I have been in your country I have seen much
that appeals to me.'

'Of course, it is a well-known fact,' said Dunckley sententiously,
'that American humour relies on exaggeration.'

'No, no,' said Johnston Smyth, hushing the voices with a _pianissimo_
movement of his hands, 'it is not humour on Mr. Selwyn's part, but
gratitude. In return for Christopher Columbus discovering America,
this gentleman is going to repay the debt of the New World to the Old
by discovering England.'

'SHALL WE HAVE SOME PORT?' said Lady Durwent, opening the sluice-gates
of her vocal production.

II.

'Speaking of America,' said Mrs. Le Roy Jennings a few minutes later,
Johnston Smyth having sat down in order to do justice to the wine of
Portugal, 'she is in the very vanguard of progress. Women have
achieved an independence there unknown elsewhere in the world.'

'That is true,' said Lady Durwent, who knew nothing whatever about it.

'You are right,' said Madame Carlotti.

'The other day in Paris I heard an American woman whistling. "Have you
lost your dog?" I asked. "No," she says; "my husband."'

A chorus of approval greeted this malicious sally, followed by the
retailing of various anti-American anecdotes that made up in sting what
they lacked in delicacy. These showed no signs of abatement until,
slightly nettled, Selwyn put in an oar.

'I had hoped,' he said, 'to find some illuminating points in the
conversation to-night. But it seems as if you treat not only your own
country in a spirit of caricature, but mine as well. We are a very
young race, and