“No, I never touch liquor. Don’t allow it in my house. It’s no good--no business man ought to touch it.”
“I suppose not,” replied Frothingham, feeling that here was new evidence of the essentially degrading nature of business.
“I missed you at dinner,” Barney went on.
“The Longviews invited me to feed with them,” replied Frothingham carelessly. “They eat in their sitting room. Sorry to leave you, but the service is much better.”
Barney’s maxillary muscles expanded and contracted with anger. He half snorted, half laughed. “You might know,” he said, “that that shark-faced snob would invent a new way of making himself ridiculous. So, the general dining room ain’t good enough for him, eh? He _is_ a swell, ain’t he? I should think he and his--no, leave the young lady out of it--I should think he’d be ashamed to fish for you so openly.” Barney’s tone softened apologetically, greatly to Frothingham’s surprise, as he added: “I don’t blame you, Mr. Frothingham. I understand how it is with you titled people in your country. I don’t blame anybody for walking round on human necks if their owners’ll allow it. But _we_ feel differently about all those kind of things.”
Frothingham smiled conciliatingly. “Oh, I say, now! I don’t see anything to make a row over. The beggar’s a right to eat where he pleases, hasn’t he?”
[Illustration: _Barney half a dozen chairs away glowering at Longview_]
“Of course he has, and to stick his tongue out at all the rest of us, as he does it. You don’t understand. It ain’t _what_ he does. It’s _why_ he does it. We Americans can’t stand those kind of airs.”
“It seems very mysterious to me,” confessed Frothingham. “I admit I don’t understand your country.”
“Oh, you’re all right,” reassured Barney, slapping Frothingham’s leg cordially. “I never thought I’d like one of you titled fellows. I despised you all for a useless set of nobodies and nincompoops. And whenever my womenfolks got to talking about that kind of thing I always sat on ’em, and sat hard--I’m a hard sitter when I want to be. But I like you, young man. You’re more an American than an Englishman, just as Longview’s more English than American--he ain’t American at all. You talk like an American. You behave like an American. And when you’ve been in America long enough to wear your clothes out, and get some that fit you, you’ll look like an American.”