twice, saying, "Tattah, I want to kiss you," which I
could but feel was something due to the promised candy on the sconce.

I sat down and began to write:

_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.

Mrs. Jimmie, having been presented at the Court of St. James, always
has more to do in London than she can attend to. As Jimmie hates
functions with all the hatred of the American business man who looks
upon gloves as for warmth only, this leaves Jimmie and me to roam
around London at will. Mrs. Jimmie loathes the top of a "'bus" and
absolutely draws the line at "The Cheshire Cheese." She lunches at
Scott's and dines at the Savoy, while Jimmie and I are never so happy
as in the grill-room at the Trocadero or in a hansom, threading the
mazes of the City, bound for a plate of beefsteak pie at "The Cheshire
Cheese" or on top of a 'bus on Saturday night, going through the
Whitechapel region, creepy with horrors of "Jack the Ripper."

"What in all the world is a beefsteak pie?" she asked us, when she
heard our unctuous exclamations.

"Why, it is a huge meat pie, made out of ham and larks and pigeons and
beef, with a delicious gravy or sauce and a divine pastry. And you eat
it in a little old kitchen with a sanded floor and deal tables, and
where the bread is cut in chunks and where the steins are so thick that
it is like drinking your beer over a stone wall, and where Dr. Samuel
Johnson used to sit so often that the oil from his hair has made a
lovely dirty spot on the wall, and they have it under glass with a
tablet to his memory, so that if you like you can go and kneel down and
worship before it, with your knees grinding into the sand of the
floor," I said.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Jimmie, faintly. "Couldn't they have cleaned it
off?"

At this juncture Bee came in with her hat on. "Excuse me for
interrupting you," she said, with a far-away look in her eyes. "But do
you mind if I copy that pink negligee? It hangs so much better than
those I got in Paris. I won't take a moment. Just stand up and let me
see. You needn't look so despairing, I am not going to stay. No,
Billy, you stay there. Mother will be down directly. Oh, baby, why
will you step on poor Tattah's gown? See, you hurt her. Didn't I tell
you to stay with Norah? Six, eight, ten--don't, Billy. Don't touch
any of Tattah's papers. Twelve--and four times seven--I think thirty
yards of lace--Billy, take your engine off the piano. Oh, I forgot to