Wasn't that unendurable?
I answered that those were the chief solid article of food, but that after their complexions were established, so to speak, their parents often allowed them pickles and native claret to vary the diet." "What did he say to that ?" I asked.
"Oh, he said, 'Quite so, quite so'; that was his invariable response to all my witticisms.

Then when I told him casually that the shops looked very small and dark and stuffy here, and that there were not as many tartans and plaids in the windows as we had expected, he remarked that as to the latter point, the American season had not opened yet! Presently he asserted that no royal city in Europe could boast ten centuries of such glorious and stirring history as Edinburgh.

I said it did not appear to be stirring much at present, and that everything in Scotland seemed a little slow to an American; that he could have no idea of push or enterprise until he visited a city like Chicago.

He retorted that, happily, Edinburgh was peculiarly free from the taint of the ledger and the counting-house; that it was Weimar without a Goethe, Boston without its twang!" "Incredible!" cried Salemina, deeply wounded in her local pride.

"He never could have said 'twang' unless you had tried him beyond measure!" "I dare say I did; he is easily tried," returned Francesca.