in peace time that as soon as you reach town you can call a hostess up on the telephone and have her say, "Oh, you're the friend of Sallie Smith that she's written me about. Come right along up to dinner." Why, the butler would tell you her ladyship or her grace or something like that was not at home. It just can't be done like that outside of America. You don't rush into the best English circles that way, much less the English government. Absolutely your only way around is through a formal correspondence.
One day I wrap myself in the rose satin down bedquilt at the Ritz and spread out my letters of introduction to choose a journalistic lead. There are carved cupids on the walls of this bedroom, and a lovely rose velvet carpet on the floor and heavy rose silk hanging at the windows. But there isn't any place to be warm. The tiny open grate holds six or it may be seven coals—you see why Dickens always writes of "coals" in the plural—and you put them on delicately with things like the sugar tongs. It isn't good form to be warm in England. The best families aren't. It's plebeian and American even to want to be.
My soul is all curled up with the cold while I am trying to determine which letter. This to Sir Gilbert Parker was the 84th letter handed me by the editor of the Pictorial Review as I stepped on the boat. It is the one I now select first, quite by chance, without the least idea of where it is to lead me. The next evening at 6 o'clock I am on my way to Well-
