Statement of Cassius P. Kennedy, formerly of Necropolis City, Ohio, now Manager of the London Branch of the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage Company (Ltd.) of Chicago and St. Louis. We had been in London two years when a series of extraordinary events took place which involved us, through no fault of our own, in the most unpleasant predicament that ever overtook two honest, respectable Americans in a foreign country. I had been sent over to start the English branch of the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage Company, one of the biggest concerns of the Middle West, and it wasn’t two months before I realized that the venture was going to catch on, and I was going to be at the head of a booming business. I’d brought my wife and little girl along with me. We’d been married five years--met in Necropolis City, and lived there and afterward in Chicago, where I got my first big promotion. She was Daisy K. Fairweather, of Buncumville, Indiana, and had been the belle of the place. She’d also attracted considerable attention in St. Louis and Kansas City, where she’d visited round a good deal. There was nothing green about Daisy K. Fairweather--never had been. Daisy and I didn’t know many people when we first came over, but that little woman wasn’t here six months before she’d sized up the situation, and made up her mind just how and where she was going to butt in. The first thing she did was to conform to those particular ones among the local customs that seemed to her the most high-toned. In Chicago we’d always dined at half-past six, and given the hired girls every Thursday off. In London we dined the first year at half-past seven, and the second at half-past eight. We had four servants and a butler called Perkins, who ran everything in sight--myself included. I always dressed for dinner after Perkins came, and tried to look as if it was my lifelong custom. I’d have sunk out of sight in a sea of shame rather than have had Perkins think I had not been brought up to it. Daisy caught on to everything, and then passed the word on to me. She was always springing innovations on me, and I did the best I could to keep my end up. She stopped talking the way she used to in Necropolis City, and made Elaine--that’s our little girl--quit calling me “Popper” and call me “Daddy.” She called her front hair her “fringe” and her shirt-waist her “bloos,” and she made me careful of what I said before the servants. “Servants talk so!” she’d say, just as if she’d heard them. In Necropolis City, or even Chicago, we never bothered about the “help” talking. They said what they wanted and we said what we wanted, and that was all there was to it. But I supposed it was all right. Whatever Daisy K. Fairweather Kennedy says goes with me.