ant-Knox will entertain him also, and
maybe he will paint some of America red.'"

"That's all about you, I see," Sally finished up. "The rest is about
Cousin Katherine and me. It says we've come back with a touch of the
Piccadilly accent; and it criticises my nose, and the way Cousin
Katherine puts on her hat. It describes this house all wrong, and says
the Newport cottage 'knocks spots' out of Mrs. Van der Windt's cottage.
It also mentions Cousin Potter, and calls him 'one of our Army Dudes.'
But _we_ don't mind, and you mustn't. Everybody reads _The Flashlight_,
for the sake of the shocks, but nobody believes its flashes."

"Still, you must have said something to the man," remarked Mrs. Ess
Kay.

"I only said 'No, but--' or 'Yes, but--,'" I insisted. "Truly and truly
nothing else. And oh, there was a _Bat_, too, who tried to talk to me."

"Great Scott! the _Evening Bat_," chortled Mr. Parker. "Look out for
something rich to-night."

"Can't he be stopped?" I asked.

"Might as well try to stop Niagara--with a tin can; the less _you_
said, the more the _Bat_ will say. But it doesn't matter. Nobody'll
care. Reporters are paid by the yard for imagination; information's
gone out, though I do hear you use it still on your side."

I was just going to defend information (British) at the expense of
imagination (American), when I remembered that the "Army Dude"--which
sounds rather like something you might buy at the Stores--had sent me
up an enormous bouquet of violets as big as a breakfast plate, and that
I'd forgotten to thank him. I did so at once, but it seemed that I had
blundered.

"Violets?" he echoed. "Must have been some other fellow. I sent you
gardenias."

"Oh, then the cards got mixed," I said. "I thought the gardenias were
from Mr. Doremus. How kind of you both. I was so surprised to receive
such lovely flowers."

"Our American buds are surprised when they don't get them. They would
think it a cold day when they didn't have a slight morning haul of
flowers--must be out of season ones, or they're no use--new novels, or
candy. What do men over on your side of the water do to convince you
girls that they think you're as beautiful as you really are?"

I thought for a minute, and then I said that perhaps we weren't as hard
to convince as American girls. I don't know whether this was a proper
answer or not, but, anyway, Mr. Parker laughed, and then began to plan
what we should do for the day.

"Say, let's