She asked Mabel about this that evening, and the latter told her husband how Miss Noel was always mixing up the two continents.

“I don’t despair, Mabel.  They will find this potato-patch of ours after a while,” he said good-humoredly.

But he was less amiable when Mrs. Sykes said at dinner next day, “I should like to try your maize.  Quite simply boiled, and eaten with butter and salt, I am told it is quite good, really.  I have heard that the Duke of Slumborough thought it excellent.”

“You don’t say so!  I am so glad to hear it!  I shall make it generally known as far as I can.  Such things encourage us to go on trying to make a nation of ourselves.  It would have paralyzed all growth and development in this country for twenty years if he had thought it ‘nasty,’” said Job.  “Foreigners can’t be too particular how they express their opinions about us.  Over and over again we have come within an ace of putting up the shutters and confessing that it was no use pretending that we could go on independently having a country of our own, with distinct institutions, peculiarities, customs, manners, and even productions.  It would be so much better and easier to turn ourselves over to a syndicate of distinguished foreigners who would govern us properly,—­stamp out ice-water and hot rolls from the first, as unlawful and not agreeing with the Constitution, give us cool summers, prevent children from teething hard, make it a penal offence to talk through the nose, and put a bunch of Bourbons in the White House, with a divine right to all the canvas-back ducks in the country.  There are so many kings out of business now that they could easily give us a bankrupt one to put on our trade dollar, or something really sweet in emperors who have seen better days.  And a standing army of a hundred thousand men, all drum-majors, in gorgeous uniforms, helmets, feathers, gold lace, would certainly scare the Mexicans into caniptious and unconditional surrender.  The more I think of it, the more delightful it seems.  It is mere stupid obstinacy our people keeping up this farce of self-government, when anybody can see that it is a perfect failure, and that the country has no future whatever.”

“Oh, you talk in that way; but I don’t think you would really like it,” said Mrs. Sykes.  “Americans seem to think that they know everything:  they are above taking any hints from the Old World, and get as angry as possible with me when I point out a few of the more glaring defects that strike me.”

“I am surprised at that.  Our great complaint is that we can’t get any advice from Europeans.  If we only had a little, even, we might in time loom up as a fifth-rate power.  But no:  they leave us over here in this wilderness without one word of counsel or criticism, or so much as a suggestion, and they ought not to be surprised that we are going to the dogs.  What else can they expect?” said Mr. Ketchum.

“Husband, dear, you were very sharp with my cousin to-day, and it was not like you to show temper,—­at least, not temper exactly, but vexation,” said Mabel to him afterward in mild rebuke.  “She has told me that you quite detest the English, so that she wonders you should have married me.  And I said that you were far too intelligent and just to cherish wrong feelings toward any people, much less my people.”