“You must find strangers very dishonest, madam,” said the Senator courteously as we stepped inside, “to render such a precaution necessary.”

But before we arrived at the third floor we were convinced that it was unnecessary.  It was not an elevator that the most burglarious would have cared to take away.

So many Americans surrounded the breakfast table next morning that we might almost have imagined ourselves in Chicago.  A small, young priest with furtive brown eyes cowered at one of the side tables, and at another a broad-shouldered, unsmiling lady, dressed in black, with brows and a slight moustache to match, dispensed food to a sallow and shrinking object of preternaturally serious aspect who seemed to be her husband, and a little boy who kept an anxious eye on them both.  They were French, too, but all the people who sat up and down the long middle table belonged to the United States of America.  They were there in groups and in families representing different localities and different social positions—­as momma said, you had only to look at their shoulder seams; and each group or family received the advances of the next with the polite tolerance, head a little on one side, which characterises us when we don’t know each other’s business standing or church membership; but the tide of conversation which ebbed and flowed had a flavour which made the table a geographical unit.  I say “flavour,” because there was certainly something, but I am now inclined to think with Mr. Page that “accent” is rather too strong a word to describe it.  At all events, the gratification of hearing it after his temporary exile in Great Britain almost brought tears to the Senator’s eyes.  There were only three vacant places, and, as we took them, making the national circle complete, a little smile wavered round the table.  It was a proud, conscious smile; it indicated that though we might not be on terms of intimacy we recognised ourselves to be immensely and uniformly American, and considerably the biggest fraction of the travelling public.  As poppa said, the prevailing feeling was also American.  As he was tucking his napkin into his waistcoat, and ordering our various breakfasts, the gentleman who sat next to him listened—­he could not help it—­fidgetted, and finally, with some embarrassment, spoke.

“I don’t know, sir,” he said, “whether you’re aware of it—­I presume you’re a stranger, like myself—­but all they allow for what they call breakfast in this hotel is tea or coffee, rolls, and butter; everything else is charged extra.”

Poppa was touched.  As he said to me afterward, who but an American would have taken the trouble to tell a stranger a thing like that!  Not an Englishman, certainly—­he would see you bankrupt first!  He disguised his own sophistication, and said he was very much obliged, and he almost apologised for not being able to take advantage of the information, and stick to coffee and rolls.