The talk at dinner was desultory, and Mr. Taintor said little. I noticed that he had a dish of corned beef and cabbage, although the pièce de résistance for the rest of us was beef with a Yorkshire pudding. He left the table before coffee was served, but not before my friend had asked him to join us later on the balcony for a smoke and chat. When we went up we found him already on the balcony, smoking a corn-cob pipe of American manufacture. My friend introduced us, and he shook my hand with one downward jerk. How often have I felt that pressure in the rural districts of Connecticut! When Mr. Taintor learned that I had been in London only a week and had just come from Middletown, his face lighted up with interest, and he said: "You have passed my wife in the street. She often comes to town market days." "Oh, then she's not with you," was my somewhat idiotic reply. "No, she ain't; an' unless the good Lord heaves enough sand into the Atlantic to make the walkin' good, she won't never be with me." "You must be anxious to get back? Been over here some weeks?" said I. "A matter of thirty year," he replied, and sighed prodigiously. "Why, you must be quite an Englishman by this time." He looked troubled. "Dew I look English?" said he. "No, no," I replied, comfortingly; "you might pass for Uncle Sam." "Well, I hope I'll never pass fer anythin' wuss," said he. "It's jest thirty year in November sence I left America, an' I've be'n in this dreary taown ever sence; but I ain't never read an English noospaper nor ridden in an English omnibus or horse-car or steam-car, neither, an' I try to eat as much as possible what I would ef I was at home with Cynthy. An' I'm a Republican clean through." "Well, what's keeping you here?" said I.