As he took his way through the crowded Strand, surrounded on all sides by honest British faces wet with honest British perspiration he thought longingly of his rooms in Washington Square, New York.

For West, despite the English sound of that Geoffrey, was as American as Kansas, his native state, and only pressing business was at that moment holding him in England, far from the country that glowed unusually rosy because of its remoteness.
At the Carlton news stand West bought two morning papers--the Times for study and the Mail for entertainment and then passed on into the restaurant.

His waiter--a tall soldierly Prussian, more blond than West himself--saw him coming and, with a nod and a mechanical German smile, set out for the plate of strawberries which he knew would be the first thing desired by the American.

West seated himself at his usual table and, spreading out the Daily Mail, sought his favorite column.

The first item in that column brought a delighted smile to his face: "The one who calls me Dearest is not genuine or they would write to me." Any one at all familiar with English journalism will recognize at once what department it was that appealed most to West.