There are some aspects of the personal contact of the two races which, it must be confessed, have unfortunate consequences. As for the appraisal of Americans by the English, the fact that we both speak the same language has its drawbacks. The tongue of every Frenchman, whether gentleman or boor, proclaims his nationality. The best as well as the worst are known for what they are—French. But there is nothing to proclaim so obviously the wellbred, cultivated, quiet-mannered American as American. Unless that fact transpires in some other way, he naturally is considered to be English. On the other hand, there is no mistaking the noisy, underbred American, and, it must be confessed, a most appalling number turn up over here. Nor is it always those without money or apparently any social background who give the English cause to wonder at us as uncultured barbarians. In the quiet English hotel where I always stay in London one is never disturbed by having to overhear the conversation of any English group either in the dining room or in the drawing-rooms. But in every case this winter when an American family has arrived the place has been thrown into a turmoil at once. To cite a specific instance or two: The other day an evidently well-to-do family appeared—father, mother, and son of about fifteen. At dinner the boy came into the dining room ahead of his parents, stood in the middle, and from that vantage point shouted out a conversation[Pg 281] to his father, still in the drawing-room, to the consternation of the English diners. A few nights afterward another family, evidently of considerable wealth and speaking with an excellent accent, took possession of the drawing-room. The rest of us, quite uninterested, were informed in loud tones of what a new camp in the Adirondacks was like, where the son had been big-game hunting on two continents, and many other personal details, until in despair of being able to read or talk quietly one group of English after another got up and left the room to my fellow citizens. It is evident that this sort of thing does not endear us to the hearts of the quiet and privacy-loving British.