Page:America Today, Observations and Reflections.djvu/217

 and downhearted. But," he added, "next day, when you're in it, oh, it is bully!"

The general use of picturesque metaphor is of course a striking feature in American conversation. Many of these expressions have taken firm root in England, such as "to have no use for" a man, or "to take no stock in" a theory. But fresh inventions crop up on every hand in America. For instance, where an English theatrical manager would say, "We must get this play well talked about and paragraphed in advance," an American manager puts the whole thing much more briefly and forcibly in the phrase, "We don't want this piece to come in on rubbers." Metaphor apart, many Americans have a gift of fantastic extravagance of phrase which often produces an irresistible effect. A gentleman in high political office had one day to receive a deputation with whose objects he had no sympathy. He listened for some time to the spokesman of the party, and then, at a pause, broke in with the remark: "Gentlemen, you need proceed no further. I am not an entirely dishevelled jackass!" One would give something for a snapshot photograph of the faces of that deputation.

Small differences of expression (other than those with which every one is familiar—such as "elevator," "baggage," "depôt," &c.)—strike one in daily life. The American for "To let" is "For rent"; a "thing one would wish to have expressed otherwise" is, more briefly, "a bad break"; instead of