FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 23 



defensible, but I waited with confidence to see 

 what I should see. I could hardly have hoped 

 that my very first evening on shore, and at so 

 fashionable a house, would plead for me and 

 convince the lady that her countrymen are much 

 as others, but so it turned out. We had not been 

 there half-an-hour, when I espied at another table, 

 not far removed, a well-dressed youth so very 

 drunk that he squinted appreciation of the empty 

 magnum at his elbow. In full view of the whole 

 room, which did not show the surprise I had 

 looked for, he was presently assisted to the door 

 by a shamefaced friend and two waiters, resenting 

 such help with the reiterated assurance that he 

 was a gentleman. My fair neighbour was so 

 clearly distressed by the behaviour of her com- 

 patriot that I had not the heart to chaff her, indeed 

 it was more pleasant to be able to write to her a 

 month later, confirming her curious prophecy, that 

 this was the last case of intoxication that I should 

 see during my sojourn on American soil. Not in 

 fact until an evening in May, exactly one month 

 later by the dates, did I, leaning over the rail of 

 the Olivette, bound for Cuba, see a top-heavy dock 

 labourer on the wharf at Key West ; these two, 

 and none between. 



The ordinary table food in houses differs little 

 from ours at home, though the butter is not always 

 good, and most of the biscuits, or crackers as they 

 are called, are unmistakably inferior to those of 

 Reading. In provincial towns (which natives call 

 cities, and cities they will be by the time the next 

 generation is grown up), the coffee is far better, 

 and the tea far worse, than in England. I have no 



