Mrs. Chesterton again handed about some fudge. The collection of ash-trays and bowls surrounding Mr. Chesterton had become jovially freighted with tobacco ash and cigar ends. He smoked his cigars in an economical fashion, down as far as they could comfortably be held. There was one thing (the talk had turned to his lecturing) Mr. Chesterton "wished you wouldn't do in this country, or that we didn't do in England, either." That was for the gentleman who "introduced" a lecturer to refer to his "message." In his own case, for instance, how ridiculously was this term misapplied. The word "message" conveyed something "quite the opposite of personality." Or, that is, before its popular corruption it had meant something very different. It meant that something was carried. One with a message was a messenger, a vessel, an envelope. It was hard to think of a figure who could rightly be said to have a message. The Old Testament prophets, Mohammed, perhaps. Whitman, now certainly you couldn't say that Whitman had a message. A ring; and Mr. Cushman came in. Youthfully cropped grey hair. A gentleman who looked like a habitual first-nighter. Yes, Mr. Chesterton was telling us, it was a curious thing. He had always heard that Americans worshipped machines. A machine everywhere here, and a machine brought to an amazing state of mechanical perfection, was the elevator, as we called it. When he had first got into an American elevator he had been arrested by the fact that the men entering it took off their hats and stood silently with bared heads as it ascended. It is so, he had said to himself, they are at worship, at prayer, this is some religious rite, mystic ceremony, the elevator is their temple. Had he been in our subway? was asked. No; he had been down in a station one time, but he had not ridden on one of the trains. I wish now that I had thought to cut into the rapid battledore and shuttlecock of the conversation to learn why he had not been. Was he scared of 'em? What were the things which Mr. Chesterton particularly liked in the United States? Well, for one thing, he very much liked the "elevated." He thought it was grand up in the air that way. And what had be especially _disliked_? Mr. Lee apparently had knowledge of a memorandum book kept by Mrs. Chesterton, known to their ultimate little circle as her "Book of Likes and Dislikes." She was, with some difficulty, prevailed upon to read from this--which she did very guardedly, clutching the book very firmly before her. Among the things put down in it as not liked were ice cream, ice water, "American boots" (by which was meant women's high-heeled shoes), and interviewers, reporters and camera men. Things especially liked included parlor-car seats. Mr. Chesterton: "I don't dislike it, now. I've got the evil habit of ice water."