Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/286

 The principal stared at me an instant, and then burst into immoderate laughter. She called the victim and the other older girls to her and explained my joke, and they all went into peels of laughter. In spite of its inauspicious beginning my American joke was a huge success; and I could not understand why both the principal and my "mother" united—after their amusement had subsided—in cautioning me to make no more American jokes.

For one year I stayed at the school; then, having saved some money from my private lessons, and having enough pupils assured me for the coming year, I decided to leave the school and go into a private family, for the sake of my English, and also in order to see American home life. I still felt very ignorant about the American people: in their own way they were so complex, and they could not be judged by European standards.

Almost with stupefaction do I read the interviews reported by the newspapers with distinguished and undistinguished foreigners, who, after a few days' sojourn in the United States, and a bird's-eye view of the country, give out their comprehensive and eulogistic opinions. They fill me with amazement, and I wonder whether these other foreigners are so much cleverer than I, or whether they are playing an American joke on the American people.