Fortunately, at that moment the man in charge of the garage appeared with the information that he had succeeded in getting the distilled water needed for the batteries, as the chemist's shop was now open, and John departed with him to see to dropping it in. There was a long silence, and then the stranger said: "Are you an American?" When I told him, he said: "Really, I should never have suspected it!" How thankful I was that the chemist had opened his shop just when he did, for that "compliment"--for such of course it was intended to be--affects John as "sheeny" does an Irishman. "Of course," continued my neighbor, "I saw at once that your husband was an American. But how does it happen that you speak without an accent?" I laughed and said: "Probably because I had lived until my marriage in Boston, and am of pure English stock, whereas my husband is of mixed race, possibly having no English blood at all in him." "Dear me! You don't mean to say Indian or negro, do you?" Thank goodness that distilled water has to be put in drop by drop, or John would have been in the place he said the wife of Heber should be in! I explained that my husband's ancestors on one side had come from Ulster, and on the other from Wales, so that he did not have quite the same feeling about England that I have, whose people came from Norfolk and Devon. He remarked it was a pity--I suppose for John, not for me--but I did not inquire. It is, however, a funny thing that while the English speak of curiosity as an American characteristic, they never seem to think there is any reason they should not ask us any questions which come into their heads. John, to whom, I need not say, I am indebted for this observation, says that it is because they look on us as freaks! And that just as children at the circus will pinch the legs of those unfortunate creatures called freaks--a thing they would never dream of doing to "humans"--so the English take liberties with us which they would never take with their own countrymen. But you know how he talks! My new acquaintance was evidently not yet satisfied, for he continued: "You know that was rather an original remark of your husband's about the sermon this morning." I replied that he was rather an original person. "But," he said, "if you once begin that sort of thing, where will it end?" "What sort of thing?" I asked. "Why, talking about those people in the Bible as if they were real people living to-day, don't you know." "Don't you think of them as real?" "I don't think of them at all." "But when they are spoken of in a sermon, what do you think?"