Since that brief dialogue, this American does not think well of the English. Now, two interpretations of the Englishman’s answer are possible. One is, that he didn’t himself know, and said so in his English way. English talk is often very short, much shorter than ours. That is because they all understand each other, are much closer knit than we are. Behind them are generations of “doing it” in the same established way, a way that their long experience of life has hammered out for their own convenience, and which they like. We’re not nearly so closely knit together here, save in certain spots, especially the old spots. In Boston they understand each other with very few words said. So they do in Charleston. But these spots of condensed and hoarded understanding lie far apart, are never confluent, and also differ in their details; while the whole of England is confluent, and the details have been slowly worked out through centuries of getting on together, and are accepted and observed exactly like the rules of a game. In America, if the American didn’t know, he would have answered, “I don’t know. I think you’ll have to ask the conductor,” or at any rate, his reply would have been longer than the Englishman’s. But I am not going to accept the idea that the Englishman didn’t know and said so in his brief usual way. It’s equally possible that he did know. Then, you naturally ask, why in the name of common civility did he give such an answer to the American? I believe that I can tell you. He didn’t know that my friend was an American, he thought he was an Englishman who had broken the rules of the game. We do have some rules here in America, only we have not nearly so many, they’re much more stretchable, and it’s not all of us who have learned them. But nevertheless a good many have. Suppose you were traveling in a train here, and the man next you, whose face you had never seen before, and with whom you had not yet exchanged a syllable, said: “What’s your pet name for your wife?” Wouldn’t your immediate inclination be to say, “What damned business is that of yours?” or words to that general effect?