Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/276

 war. During a part of the war, he was acting United States consul at Pretoria. When the war closed, he again engaged in the real-estate business in Johannesburg, and has long been a part of the "American influence" that undoubtedly exists here Soon after we met Mr. Atterbury, we all started out in an automobile to call on his wife. But we found her out; she had gone to call on an American friend, Mrs. Mark Cary, in one of the suburbs. So we went out there, on the way passing through many of the most wonderful sections of this wonderful town. Mrs. Atterbury and Mrs. Cary had gone down-town, we found, on arriving at the Cary home, so we sat down on the veranda and waited for them. Both Mr. and Mrs. Cary are from California, and their home is one of the show places of Johannesburg; because of its lavish display of flowers, for one reason. The maid served tea on the veranda, and the time passed pleasantly and rapidly in listening to Mr. Atterbury talk of South Africa. He looks like a typical American, in spite of his nineteen years' continuous residence here Presently Mrs. Cary and Mrs. Atterbury arrived from downtown, and Mrs. Atterbury said to us:

"I haven't lost my American accent, have I?"

And she hadn't; nor had Mrs. Cary, which is not surprising, since she visited her home in California last year. But poor Mrs. Atterbury has been here nineteen years.

"Isham," she said to her husband, with genuine American enthusiasm, "I'm going home with them. May I?" When I took a kodak picture of the party, Mrs. Atterbury wondered that she "didn't break the