m time to time, too, unaware of this, he grasped deep into
his pockets and rattled coins and keys, going from point to point,
from proof to proof, until the Constitution of England was quite
devoid of Law and out from under his waistcoat bulged a line of shirt.

It was monstrous, gigantic, amazing, deadly, delicious. Nothing
like it has ever been done before or will ever be seen, heard and
felt like it again.

A clever caricature depicts Dickens in one corner, his arms full of
bricks, hammers and jagged objects, labelled "American Notes." The
rest of the picture is an immense drawing of a smiling Chesterton,
his arms full of roses, labelled "Kind Words for America." He is
pointing at Dickens and saying: "America must have changed a great
deal since then."

Not only Gilbert but also Frances was constantly interviewed. "I tell
them," one interviewer quotes her as saying, "that I didn't know I
was the wife of a great man till I came to America. It never bothered
me before."

This, coming from one of those English wives, so popularly
portrayed as representing the acme of submission, was delightful. A
slight, slim little figure, looking slighter and slimmer in the wake
of her overshadowing husband, with an outward appearance of
unsurpassed mildness and meekness which her conversation readily
dispelled, the wife of this delightful Englishman of letters
presented a very intimate Chestertonian paradox.

Frances kept a Diary of which almost the first entry is "So far my
feelings towards this country are entirely hostile, but it would be
unfair to judge too soon. We have refused all invitations; it's the
only thing to do." This idea they must have abandoned, for one paper
after Gilbert's death describes him as an immense success socially
but "a big bland failure" as a lecturer. As the tour proceeds the
entries in the Diary become more favorable but unlike her letters
from Poland--where what she liked best was anything really
Polish--the Diary shows Frances as singling out for approval those
things approximately English--e.g., houses where she stayed in Boston
and Philadelphia. She hated hustle, heat and crowds, and the Diary is
full of remarks about her exhaustion.

G.K. commented in one interview on the different conception of a Club
in England and in America. While groups of men entertained him,
Women's Clubs were entertaining his wife. But an English Club "is
really a promoter of