he salted
almonds. 'Oh, I know how _you_ feel, Madam Burton, but a Northerner
like myself--I'm Buffalo--even though we come over every year--notices
the desire for comfort in England. There's so little conflict or uplift
in British society.'

'But we like being comfortable,' I said.

'I know it. It's very characteristic. But ain't it a little, just a
little, lacking in adaptability an' imagination?'

'They haven't any need for adaptability,' Madam Burton struck in. 'They
haven't any Ellis Island standards to live up to.'

'But we can assimilate,' the Buffalo woman charged on.

'Now you _have_ done it!' I whispered to the old lady as the blessed
word 'assimilation' woke up all the old arguments for and against.

There was not a dull moment in that dinner for me--nor afterwards when
the boys and girls at the piano played the rag-time tunes of their own
land, while their elders, inexhaustibly interested, replunged into the
discussion of that land's future, till there was talk of coon-can. When
all the company had been set to tables Zigler led me into his book-lined
study, where I noticed he kept his golf-clubs, and spoke simply as a
child, gravely as a bishop, of the years that were past since our
last meeting.

'That's about all, I guess--up to date,' he said when he had unrolled
the bright map of his fortunes across three continents. 'Bein' rich
suits me. So does your country, sir. My own country? You heard what
that Detroit man said at dinner. "A Government of the alien, by the
alien, for the alien." Mother's right, too. Lincoln killed us. From the
highest motives--but he killed us. Oh, say, that reminds me. 'J'ever
kill a man from the highest motives?'

'Not from any motive--as far as I remember.'

'Well, I have. It don't weigh on my mind any, but it was interesting.
Life _is_ interesting for a rich--for any--man in England. Ya-as! Life
in England is like settin' in the front row at the theatre and never
knowin' when the whole blame drama won't spill itself into your lap. I
didn't always know that. I lie abed now, and I blush to think of some of
the breaks I made in South Africa. About the British. Not your official
method of doin' business. But the Spirit. I was 'way, 'way off on the
Spirit. Are you acquainted with any other country where you'd have to
kill a man or two to get at the National Spirit?'

'Well,' I answered, 'next to marrying one of its women, killing one of
its men makes for pretty close int