He held my hand absent-mindedly for a moment, and mentioned the effectiveness of the Ponte Vecchio from that point of view.
"I didn't feel bound to change my tickets less ten per cent.," he said hopefully, "and we're sure to come across them early and often.

In the meantime you might try and soften me a little--about Lot's wife." Next day, in the Ufizzi, it was no surprise to meet the Miss Binghams.
We had a guilty consciousness of fellow-citizenship as we recognised them, and did our best to look as if two weeks were quite long enough to be forgotten in, but they seemed charitable and forgiving on this account, said they had looked out for us everywhere, and _had_ we seen the cuttings in the Vatican?
"The statues, you know," explained Miss Cora kindly, seeing that we did not comprehend.

"Marvellous--simply marvellous! We enjoyed nothing so much as the marble department.

It takes it out of you though--we were awfully done afterwards." I wondered what Phidias would have said to the "cuttings," and whether the Miss Binghams imagined it a Briticism.

It also occurred to me that one should never mix one's colloquialisms; but that, of course, did not prevent their coming round with us.