"I guess it depends more on the man, in your climate, doesn't it?" asked Potter. "But over here it's sometimes a question of hours, for both sides. Why, a chum of mine went out to San Francisco on business which was going to keep him just one day. He met a girl at dinner, fell in love with her while she was eating her soup, and told her so before dessert came along. She vacillated over the ice cream, but said yes with the peaches and pears. Next day they got married and he brought her back East for a wedding trip." "What did they do about the Banns?" "Oh, Americans have done away with Banns since the Revolution, I guess. When we fellows fall in love we're in a hurry." "Marry in haste, repent at leisure," I quoted primly. "We don't repent. We just get a divorce. It saves worry. Incompatibility of the affections, or fatty degeneration of the temper, or something like that. But I don't need to talk of such things to you. Nobody who got a prize-package like Lady Betty Bulkeley would part with it while he had a button left on his coat." "I don't see what buttons would have to do with it," I said, but as I had always been sent out of the room at home directly anyone began even to mention divorce, I thought I had better go upstairs and dress for dinner at Coney Island. Mr. Parker begged me not, but I would; and Vivace barked as if he were under the impression that he was a watch dog; so thanks to him I got away without trouble. V ABOUT WEST POINT AND PROPOSALS I could hardly have supposed that there were as many people in the whole world put together, as at Coney Island; and most of them were in pairs, like the animals on their way to the ark. They all seemed to be engaged to each other, and delighted with each other's society, or else married and dreadfully tired of it. Or else they had dyspepsia. Or else they had brought too many of their children; for they had droves of very small ones, who bellowed louder than any English children I ever saw, and tyrannised over their parents in the most unbridled way. But Coney Island was fun, and I felt more than ever that I was dreaming; a long, long dream of sands, and huge hotels, and queer little booths. For dinner we ate nothing but fish, of so many different kinds and some of them so strange, that I almost feared the dream might turn into a nightmare afterwards. I found the clams rather like olives; you hate the first, but when you have had three you feel you would like three dozen; and they are not at all easy to forget.