de their way to the nearest seat and
sat down clinging each to the other's hand. Around them surged perhaps a
hundred men, chewing, spitting, smoking, slapping each other on the
backs, and laughing coarsely. The girls gazed in wonder and with visibly
increasing embarrassment for perhaps five minutes, before they slipped
away, the roses in their cheeks doubly carmine and still clinging each
to the other's hand.

For the benefit of my companion (whose appearance indicated an
Englishman) an American on an adjoining seat held forth to his friends
on what he called the "indecency" of the conduct of the girls in coming
down to the public hall and the "effrontery" of Englishwomen in
general.

In hotels of the modern type there is no need for women to use a
separate entrance or to draw their skirts aside and hurry through the
public passages. But it is sad if we must conclude that the building of
such hotels is an evidence of dying national chivalry.

Every American firmly believes that he individually, as well as each of
his countrymen, has by heritage a truer respect for womanhood than the
peoples of less happy countries are able to appreciate. But many
Americans also believe that every Englishman is rough and brutal to his
wife, who does daily all manner of menial offices for him, a belief
which is probably akin to the climatic fiction and of Continental
origin. In the old days, when there was no United States of America, the
peoples of the sunny countries of Southern Europe jibed at the English
climate; and with ample justification. English writers have never denied
that justification--in comparison with Southern Europe; and volumes
could be compiled of extracts from English literature, from Shakespeare
downwards, in abuse of British fog and mist and rain. But because Nice
and Naples are entitled to give themselves airs, under what patent do
Chicago and Pittsburgh claim the same right? Why should Englishmen
submit uncomplainingly when Milwaukee and Duluth arrogate to themselves
the privilege of sneering at them which was conceded originally and
willingly enough to Cannes? Riverside in California, Columbia in South
Carolina, Colorado Springs or Old Point Comfort--these, and such as
they, may boast, and no one has ground for protest; but it is time to
"call for credentials" when Buffalo, New Haven, and St. Paul and the
rest propose to come in in the same company. If, in the beginning of
things, English writers had had to c