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66 supposed our method of expression very sedate and uneventful' 'Not at all,' I returned, 'when you say, as you did a moment ago, that you never eat potato to your fish.' 'But I do not,' he urged obtusely. 'Very likely,' I argued, 'but the fact is not of so much importance as the preposition. Now I eat potato with my fish.' 'You make a mistake,' he said, and we both laughed in spite of ourselves, while he murmured, 'eating potato with fish,—how extraordinary.' Well, the bridge man may not add perceptibly to the gayety of the nations, but he is better than the Reverend Ronald. I forgot to say that when I chanced to be speaking of doughnuts, that 'unconquer'd Scot' asked me if a doughnut resembled a peanut! Can you conceive such ignorance?" "I think you were not only aggressively American, but painfully provincial," said Salemina, with some warmth. "Why in the world should you drag doughnuts into a dinner-table conversation in Edinburgh? Why not select topics of universal interest?"

"Like the Currie Brig or the shade of Montrose," I murmured slyly.

"To one who has ever eaten a doughnut, the subject is of transcendent interest; and as for one who has not—well, he should be made to feel his limitations," replied Francesca, with a yawn. "Come, let us forget our troubles in sleep; it is after midnight."