He was red in the face with his polite struggles when he broke from them at last.

"How they do hang on to a man, over here!" the Iowa man continued.

"And the Americans are as bad as any.

Why, there's one ratty little Englishman up at our place, and our girls just swarm after him; their mothers are worse.

Well, it's so, Jenny," he said to the lady who had joined them and whom March turned round to see when he spoke to her.