"How are _you_?" said Sir William, humorously and companionably, "I say--that _was_ a jolly cataclysm! Lucky to get off with our lives, what?" Nixon, sheepish but still characteristically blunt, came straight to his point. "I wouldn't have got off with no life," he said, "if you hadn't slung me out o' the way and got stepped on yourself." "Rubbish!" said Ware, briefly; "all the same, it's good of you to put it that way, old chap. Makes me feel less mortified at my stupidity in standing there like a post and getting knocked down. Let's jolly well talk of something else." John Nixon's head came up and back. He put his right hand down on his knee-cap with a slap that could be heard across the room. "Don't you go tryin' for to head me off, English," he said, "I done wrong and I'm a-goin' to own up to it. Here, I been walkin' around your nice house here, a-spittin' all over the floor as if it was a hotel--it kind of seems like that to me, because we don't sling on no style out west here--and all because I never did like an Englishman. They always make me contrairy. When I'm with an Englishman, I talk rough and go bullin' around, just to be the opposite to what I think he is--" Sir William leaned out over the arm of his chair and extended his uninjured hand toward Nixon. "Put her there, as you say in Canada," he said, beamingly, "Nixon, you're a brick. And if we English make you Canadians feel contrary, I'll admit we bring it on ourselves. We, too, are a contrary people; and the more you try to put on this roughness of manner, which is not your own, the more we try to put on this finicky niceness, which so rubs you the wrong way. Just because we desire to rub you the wrong way. And so we see-saw, back and forth, until eventually we come to fisticuffs, or worse. Nixon, I believe you've hit the peg on which hangs the whole difficulty between England and Canada. Now that we two understand each other, let's set an example to our peoples: let's be natural. Put her there, I say." John Nixon put her there, and the two shook hands--an inter-imperial handshake. "How would you like for to come out to my place a while, English?" he said, after a moment. "As I said, we don't sling on no style nor nothin', but we never know what it is to go hungry. The roof don't let in no rain, neither; and you can't sleep on nothin' more comfortable than a bedtick stuffed with prairie hay." "Ripping!" Sir William, "knocked about" as he was, all but hoisted himself to his feet in his enthusiasm; "I say, Nixon, when shall we start?" "Next train, if you say so. Anyway," John Nixon rubbed an eyebrow with his gray-bristled forefinger, "I'm worryin' about the stock, and I want to get back home. Got any drinkin-water around, English?" Sir William was about to touch the bell, when Nixon, glancing toward the bathroom, saw basin, tap and tumbler. "Don't ring, for me," he said, getting up, "I can work the fasset myself, without no help botherin' around."