“Not the least difference,” replied King.  “They are used to it.”

“It is a wonderful country,” said Mr. Stubbs.

“Most interesting,” chimed in Mrs. Stubbs; “and so odd!

“You know, Mr. King, we find some of the Americans so clever.  We have been surprised, really.  It makes us feel quite at home.  At the hotels and everywhere, most obliging.”

“Do you make a long stay?”

“Oh, no.  We just want to study the people and the government, and see the principal places.  We were told that Albany is the capital, instead of New York; it’s so odd, you know.  And Washington is another capital.  And there is Boston.  It must be very confusing.”  King began to suspect that he must be talking with the editor of the Saturday Review.  Mr. Stubbs continued:  “They told us in New York that we ought to go to Paterson on the Island of Jersey, I believe.  I suppose it is as interesting as Niagara.  We shall visit it on our return.  But we came over more to see Niagara than anything else.  And from there we shall run over to Chicago and the Yosemite.  Now we are here, we could not think of going back without a look at the Yosemite.”

King said that thus far he had existed without seeing the Yosemite, but he believed that next to Chicago it was the most attractive place in the country.

It was dark when they came into the station at Niagara—­dark and silent.  Our American tourists, who were accustomed to the clamor of the hackmen here, and expected to be assaulted by a horde of wild Comanches in plain clothes, and torn limb from baggage, if not limb from limb, were unable to account for this silence, and the absence of the common highwaymen, until they remembered that the State had bought the Falls, and the agents of the government had suppressed many of the old nuisances.  It was possible now to hear the roar of the cataract.

This unaccustomed human stillness was ominous to King.  He would have welcomed a Niagara of importunity and imprecations; he was bursting with impatience to express himself; it seemed as if he would die if he were silent an hour longer under that letter.  Of course the usual American relief of irritability and impatience suggested itself.  He would telegraph; only electricity was quick enough and fiery enough for his mood.  But what should he telegraph?  The telegraph was not invented for love-making, and is not adapted to it.  It is ridiculous to make love by wire.  How was it possible to frame a message that should be commercial on its face, and yet convey the deepest agony and devotion of the sender’s heart?  King stood at the little telegraph window, looking at the despatcher who was to send it, and thought of this.  Depressed and intent as he was, the whimsicality of the situation struck him.  What could he say?  It illustrates our sheeplike habit of expressing ourselves in the familiar phrase or popular slang of the day that at the instant the only thing King could think of to send was this:  “Hold