“James Herbert Barfleur,” he replied, with a gravity of pronunciation which quite took my breath away. We are not used to this formal dignity of approach in children of so very few years in America. This lad was only five years of age and he was talking to me in the educated voice of one of fifteen or sixteen. I stared, of course. “You don’t tell me,” I replied. “And what is your sister’s name, again?” “Berenice Mary Barfleur,” he replied. “Dear, dear, dear,” I sighed. “Now what do you know about that?” Of course such a wild piece of American slang as that had no significance to him whatsoever. It fell on his ears without meaning. “I don’t know,” he replied, interested in some fixture he was fastening to a toy bath tub. “Isn’t that a fine little bath tub you have,” I ventured, eager to continue the conversation because of its novelty. “It’s a nice little bawth,” he went on, “but I wouldn’t call it a tub.” I really did not know how to reply to this last, it took me so by surprise;--a child of five, in little breeches scarcely larger than my two hands, making this fine distinction. “We surely live and learn,” I thought, and went on my way smiling. This house interested me from so many other points of view, being particularly English and new, that I was never weary of investigating it. I had a conversation with the gardener one morning concerning his duties and found that he had an exact schedule of procedure which covered every day in the year. First, I believe, he got hold of the boots, delivered to him by the maid, and did those; and then he brought up his coal and wood and built the fires; and then he had some steps and paths to look after; and then some errands to do, I forget what. There was the riding pony to curry and saddle, the stable to clean--oh, quite a long list of things which he did over and over, day after day. He talked with such an air of responsibility, as so many English servants do, that I was led to reflect upon the reliability of English servants in general; and he dropped his h’s where they occurred, of course, and added them where they shouldn’t have been. He told me how much he received, how much he had received, how he managed to live on it, how shiftless and irresponsible some people were. “They don’t know ’ow to get along, sir,” he informed me with the same solemn air of responsibility. “They just doesn’t know ’ow to manige, sir, I tyke it; some people doesn’t, sir. They gets sixteen or highteen shillin’s, the same as me, sir, but hawfter they goes and buys five or six g’uns (I thought he said guns--he actually said gallons) o’ beer in the week, there hain’t much left fer other things, is there, sir? Now that’s no wy, sir, is it, sir? I hawsk you.”