MISS T. You do beat anything for mixing up places, Father. And you don't want to be letting yourself loose on Mr. Culchard this way. You'd better go and bring Mr. Van Boodeler along; he's round somewhere. MR. T. I do like slinging off when I meet a friend; but I'll shut down, Maud, I'll shut down. MISS T. Oh, there you are, Charley! Come right here, and be introduced to Mr. Culchard. He's a vurry intelligent man. My cousin, Mr. Charles Van Boodeler,--Mr. Culchard. Mr. Van Boodeler's intelligent too. He's going to write our great National Amurrcan novel, soon as ever he has time for it. That's so, isn't it? MR. V. B. (_a slim, pale young man, with a cosmopolitan air and a languid drawl_). It's our most pressing national need, Sir, and I have long cherished the intention of supplying it. I am collecting material, and, when the psychological moment arrives, I shall write that novel. And I believe it will be a big thing, a very big thing; I mean to make it a complete compendium of every phase of our great and complicated civilization from State to State and from shore to shore. [CULCHARD _bows vaguely_. MISS T. Yes, and the great Amurrcan public are going to rise up in their millions and boom it. Only I don't believe they'd better start booming just yet, till there's something more than covers to that novel. And how you're going to collect material for an Amurrcan novel, flying round Europe, just beats _me_! MR. V. B. (_with superiority_). Because you don't realize that it's precisely in Europe that I find my best American types. Our citizens show up better against a European background,--it excites and stimulates their nationality, so to speak. And again, with a big subject like mine, you want to step back to get the proper focus. Now I'm _stepping_ back. MISS T. I guess it's more like skipping, Charley. But so long as you're having a good time! And here's Mr. Culchard will fix you up some sonnets for headings to the chapters. You needn't begin _right_ away, Mr. Culchard; I guess there's no hurry. But we get talking and _talking_, and never look at anything. I don't call it encouraging the scenery, and that's a fact! MR. T. (_later, to_ CULCHARD). And you're pretty comfortable at your hotel? Well, I dunno, after all, what there is to keep _us_ here. I guess we'll go down again and stop at Lugano, eh, Maud? [CULCHARD _eagerly awaits her reply_.