and Halifax in June, 1919,
the officer expressed satisfaction to be getting home again. He had gone
over, he said, to "clean up the mess the British had made."

To a company of Americans who had never heard it before, was told the
well-known exploit of an American girl in Europe. In an ancient church
she was shown the tomb of a soldier who had been killed in battle three
centuries ago. In his honor and memory, because he lost his life bravely
in a great cause, his family had kept a little glimmering lamp alight
ever since. It hung there, beside the tomb.

"And that's never gone out in all this time?" asked the American girl.

"Never," she was told.

"Well, it's out now, anyway," and she blew it out.

All the Americans who heard this were shocked all but one, who said:

"Well, I think she was right."

There you are! There you have us at our very worst! And with this plump
specimen of the American in Europe at his very worst, I turn back to the
English: only, pray do not fail to give those other Americans who were
shocked by the outrage of the lamp their due. How wide of the mark would
you be if you judged us all by the one who approved of that horrible
vandal girl's act! It cannot be too often repeated that we must never
condemn a whole people for what some of the people do.

In the two-and-a-half anecdotes which follow, you must watch out for
something which lies beneath their very obvious surface.

An American sat at lunch with a great English lady in her country-house.
Although she had seen him but once before, she began a conversation like
this:

Did the American know the van Squibbers?

He did not.

Well, the van Squibbers, his hostess explained, were Americans who lived
in London and went everywhere. One certainly did see them everywhere.
They were almost too extraordinary.

Now the American knew quite all about these van Squibbers. He knew also
that in New York, and Boston, and Philadelphia, and in many other places
where existed a society with still some ragged remnants of decency
and decorum left, one would not meet this highly star-spangled family
"everywhere."

The hostess kept it up. Did the American know the Butteredbuns? No?
Well, one met the Butteredbuns everywhere too. They were rather more
extraordinary than the van Squibbers. And then there were the Cakewalks,
and the Smith-Trapezes' Mrs. Smith-Trapeze wasn't as extraordinary as
her daughter--the one that put the live frog in Lord Meld