“Really,” said this Englishman, “I haven’t an idea.  Perhaps as you have suggested they had no ad_dresses_.”

For a moment I felt quite depressed.  “Did you think it was a conundrum?” I asked.  “You so often remind me of Punch, Mr. Mafferton.”

I shouldn’t have liked anyone to say that to me, but it seemed to have quite a mollifying effect upon Mr. Mafferton.  He smiled and pulled his moustache in the way Englishmen always do, when endeavouring to absorb a compliment.

“Dear old London,” I went on reminiscently, “what a funny experience it was!”

“To the Transatlantic mind,” responded Mr. Mafferton stiffly, “one can imagine it instructive.”

“It was a revelation to mine,” I said earnestly—­“a revelation.”  Then, remembering Mr. Mafferton’s somewhat painful connection with the revelation, I added carefully, “From a historic point of view.  The Tower, you know, and all that.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Mafferton, with a distant eye upon the Campagna.

It was really very difficult.

“Do you remember the day we went to Madame Tussaud’s?” I asked.  Perhaps my intonation was a little dreamy.  “I shall never forget William the Conqueror—­never.”

“Yes—­yes, I think I do.”  It was clearly an effort of memory.

“And now,” I said regretfully, “it can never be the same again.”

“Certainly not.”  He used quite unnecessary emphasis.

“William and the others having been since destroyed by fire,” I continued.  Mr. Mafferton looked foolish.  “What a terrible scene that must have been!  Didn’t you feel when all that royal wax melted as if the dynasties of England had been wrecked over again!  What effect did it have on dear old Victoria?”

“One question at a time,” said Mr. Mafferton, and I think he smiled.

“Now you remind me of Sandford and Merton,” I said, “and a place for everything and everything in its place.  And punctuality is the thief of time.  And many others.”

“You haven’t got it quite right,” said Mr. Mafferton with incipient animation.  “May I correct you?  ‘Procrastination,’ not ‘punctuality.’”

“Thanks,” I said.  I could not help observing that for quite five minutes Mr. Mafferton had made no effort to overhear the conversation between Mr. Dod and Miss Portheris.  It was a trifle, but life is made up of little things.

“I don’t believe we adorn our conversation with proverbs in America as much as we did,” I continued.  “I guess it takes too long.  If you make use of a proverb you see, you’ve got to allow for reflection first, and reflection afterwards, and a sigh, and very few of us have time for that.  It is one of our disadvantages.”

Mr. Mafferton heard me with attention.

“Really!” he said in quite his old manner when we used to discuss Presidential elections and peanuts and other features of life in my republic.  “That is a fact of some interest—­but I see you cling to one little Americanism, Miss Wick.  Do you remember”—­he actually looked arch—­“once assuring me that you intended to abandon the verb to ’guess’?”