However, I shifted the weight into the other scale by answering 'Thank you.

And your phraseology is just as unusual to us.' 'Indeed ?' he said with some surprise.

'I supposed our method of expression very sedate and uneventful.' 'Not at all,' I returned, 'when you say, as you did a moment ago, that you never eat potato to your fish.' 'But I do not,' he urged obtusely.

'Very likely,' I argued, 'but the fact is not of so much importance as the preposition.

Now I eat potato WITH my fish.' 'You make a mistake,' he said, and we both laughed in spite of ourselves, while he murmured, 'eating potato WITH fish--how extraordinary.' Well, the bridge man may not add perceptibly to the gaiety of the nations, but he is better than the Reverend Ronald.