Royal Etiquette. 85 



for royalty, with maybe a special staircase to ascend by. 

 Early education and inherited tendencies account for 

 much. 



The staircase question led to the story that the 

 Marquis of Lome was not allowed to enter some per- 

 formance by the same stair with his wife. The Ameri- 

 can was up at this. "If I had a husband, and he 

 couldn't come with me, I wouldn't go." This made an 

 end of the discussion, for the English young lady's eyes 

 told plainly of her secret vow that wherever she 



went must go too. All were agreed on this point ; 



but on the general question it was a drawn battle, the 

 one side declaring that if they were men they would 

 not have a princess for a wife under any circumstances, 

 and the other insisting that, if they were princesses, they 

 would not have anybody but a prince for a husband. 



We were honored while here by the presence of Mr. 

 Sidney G. Thomas and his sister, who came down from 

 London and spent the day with us. Mr. Thomas is the 

 young chemist, who, in conjunction with his cousin 

 Mr. Gilchrist, would not accept the dictum of the au- 

 thorities that phosphorus, that fiend of steel manu' 

 facturers, cannot be expelled from iron ores at a high 

 temperature. They set to work over a small toy pot, 

 which deserves to rank with Watt's tea-kettle, to see 

 whether the scientific world had not blundered. Let 

 me premise that the presence of phosphorus in pig 

 iron to the extent of more than about one tenth of one 



