and
Stripes anywhere," he said in his most complimentary tone.

Miss Bingham looked disconcerted for an instant and went on. "My great
grandfather was A.D.C. to General Washington. I've got that much reason
to be loyal."

"There couldn't have been many such officers," the Senator agreed.

"But when I go abroad I don't want the whole of the United States to
come with me."

"It takes the gilt off getting back for you?" suggested poppa a little
stiffly.

Miss Bingham failed to take the hint. "We find Europe infested with
Americans," she continued. "It disturbs one's impressions so. And the
travelling American invariably belongs to the very _least_ desirable
class."

"Now I shouldn't have thought so," said the Senator, with intentional
humour. But it was lost upon Miss Bingham.

"Well, if you like them," said the other one, "you'd better go in the
coach."

The Senator lifted his hat. "Madam," he said, "I thank you for giving to
me and mine the privilege of visiting a very questionable scene of the
past in the very best society of the present."

And as the guide was perspiring more and more impatiently, we got in.

For some moments the Senator sat in silence, reflecting upon this
sentiment, with an occasionally heaving breast. Circumstances forbade
his talking about it, but he cast an eye full of criticism upon the
fiacre rolling along far in the rear, and remarked, with a fervor most
unusual, that he hoped they liked our dust. We certainly made a great
deal of it. Momma and I, looking at our fellow travellers, at once
decided that the Misses Bingham had been a little hasty. The fat
gentleman, who wore a straw hat very far back, and meant to enjoy
himself, was certainly our fellow-citizen. So was his wife, and
brother-in-law. So were a bride and bridegroom on the box seat--nothing
less than the best of everything for an American honeymoon--and so was a
solitary man with a short cut bristly beard, a slouch hat, a pink cotton
shirt, and a celluloid collar. But there was an indescribable something
about all the rest that plainly showed they had never voted for a
president or celebrated a Fourth of July. I was still revolving it in my
mind when the fat gentleman, who had been thinking of the same thing,
said to his neighbour on the other side, a person of serious appearance
in a black silk hat, apropos of the line he had crossed by, "I may be
wrong, but I shouldn't have put you down to be an American."

"Oh, I gu