They left as soon as Sir Robert had satisfied himself on certain points, and Miss Noel bad been sufficiently shocked by a service in the Tabernacle, and Mr. Heathcote had indulged in a bath in the lake, which he persisted in taking, and in the course of which he went through any number of antics in addition to his usual feats, in themselves remarkable, for he was a vigorous and powerful swimmer. The ex-Devonshire Elder (whom Mrs. Sykes had seen more than once slinking about the streets, she said, but who had not come near her) was pleased to be very polite to Sir Robert, or would have been if he had been allowed; but, not wishing to conduct a Salt Lake campaign _à la_ Sykes, Sir Robert was content to see the place in his own way, got a phial of water from the lake, which Miss Noel said reminded her of Sodom and Gomorrah and was "very suited to the odious place," looked at and into such things as could be seen in a short stay, and made temperate, careful records of the same in his note-book. The next point of interest to the party was "'Frisco and the Yosemite," toward which they pushed as fast as steam could take them, Sir Robert and Miss Noel being vividly interested in many things _en route_, Ethel and Mr. Heathcote pleased by a few, Mrs. Sykes grumbling ceaselessly about the length, monotony, bareness, aridity, stupidity, and general hideousness of the journey. The only thing that really amused her was a quarrel that she got up with a lady who sat near her. The acquaintance promised to be friendly enough for a while, for the lady was an amiable soul,--the wife of "a dry-goods merchant in Topeka," she told Mrs. Sykes. The latter was pleased to ask her a great many questions and to patronize her quite extensively in default of other amusement, so that all went well at first. But the second stage of Mrs. Sykes's friendship was not apt to be so pleasant as the first, and accordingly she much astonished her neighbor one morning by saying to her curtly, "Why don't you speak English?" "Why, I do. I talk it all the time, don't I?" replied the lady. "No, you don't. Just look here. I have made a list of the things you say. They are not English at all. I don't know what you mean, often." "Do you mean to say that you never heard anybody talk like me?" asked the lady indignantly, as she fumbled in her bag for her glasses. "Oh, I didn't say that. I've heard _some_ of the words among our lodging-house-keepers; but you have invented others, and your pronunciation is abominable. You should really mend it, if you can," replied Mrs. Sykes, with decision. The list which had been so civilly put in the Topekan lady's hands was a long one, and ran as follows: "Chawcolate, pawk, hawrid, cawd, squrl, stoopid, winder, lemmy, gimmy, years (for ears), 'cute, edgercation, conchienchous," etc., etc.