{"product_id":"2940013788114","title":"PENELOPE'S ENGLISH EXPERIENCES","description":"Contents.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Part First--In Town.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     I.     The weekly bill.\u003cbr\u003e     II.    The powdered footman smiles.\u003cbr\u003e     III.   Eggs a la coque.\u003cbr\u003e     IV.    The English sense of humour.\u003cbr\u003e     V.     A Hyde Park Sunday.\u003cbr\u003e     VI.    The English Park Lover.\u003cbr\u003e     VII.   A ducal tea-party.\u003cbr\u003e     VIII.  Tuppenny travels in London.\u003cbr\u003e     IX.    A Table of Kindred and Affinity.\u003cbr\u003e     X.     Apropos of advertisements.\u003cbr\u003e     XI.    The ball on the opposite side.\u003cbr\u003e     XII.   Patricia makes her debut.\u003cbr\u003e     XIII.  A Penelope secret.\u003cbr\u003e     XIV.   Love and lavender.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     Part Second--In the Country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     XV.    Penelope dreams.\u003cbr\u003e     XVI.   The decay of Romance.\u003cbr\u003e     XVII.  Short stops and long bills.\u003cbr\u003e     XVIII. I meet Mrs. Bobby.\u003cbr\u003e     XIX.   The heart of the artist.\u003cbr\u003e     XX.    A canticle to Jane.\u003cbr\u003e     XXI.   I remember, I remember.\u003cbr\u003e     XXII.  Comfort Cottage.\u003cbr\u003e     XXIII. Tea served here.\u003cbr\u003e     XXIV.  An unlicensed victualler.\u003cbr\u003e     XXV.   Et ego in Arcadia vixit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePart First--In Town.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter I. The weekly bill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSmith's Hotel,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10 Dovermarle Street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere we are in London again,--Francesca, Salemina, and I. Salemina is\u003cbr\u003ea philanthropist of the Boston philanthropists limited. I am an artist.\u003cbr\u003eFrancesca is-- It is very difficult to label Francesca. She is, at her\u003cbr\u003epresent stage of development, just a nice girl; that is about all: the\u003cbr\u003esense of humanity hasn't dawned upon her yet; she is even unaware that\u003cbr\u003epersonal responsibility for the universe has come into vogue, and so she\u003cbr\u003eis happy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrancesca is short of twenty years old, Salemina short of forty, I short\u003cbr\u003eof thirty. Francesca is in love, Salemina never has been in love, I\u003cbr\u003enever shall be in love. Francesca is rich, Salemina is well-to-do, I am\u003cbr\u003epoor. There we are in a nutshell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe are not only in London again, but we are again in Smith's private\u003cbr\u003ehotel; one of those deliciously comfortable and ensnaring hostelries in\u003cbr\u003eMayfair which one enters as a solvent human being, and which one leaves\u003cbr\u003eas a bankrupt, no matter what may be the number of ciphers on one's\u003cbr\u003eletter of credit; since the greater one's apparent supply of wealth,\u003cbr\u003ethe greater the demand made upon it. I never stop long in London\u003cbr\u003ewithout determining to give up my art for a private hotel. There must be\u003cbr\u003emillions in it, but I fear I lack some of the essential qualifications\u003cbr\u003efor success. I never could have the heart, for example, to charge a\u003cbr\u003estruggling young genius eight shillings a week for two candles, and\u003cbr\u003ethen eight shillings the next week for the same two candles, which the\u003cbr\u003estruggling young genius, by dint of vigorous economy, had managed to\u003cbr\u003epreserve to a decent height. No, I could never do it, not even if I were\u003cbr\u003ecertain that she would squander the sixteen shillings in Bond Street\u003cbr\u003efripperies instead of laying them up against the rainy day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is Salemina who always unsnarls the weekly bill. Francesca spends an\u003cbr\u003eevening or two with it, first of all, because, since she is so young,\u003cbr\u003ewe think it good mental-training for her, and not that she ever\u003cbr\u003eaccomplishes any results worth mentioning. She begins by making three\u003cbr\u003ecolumns headed respectively F., S., and P. These initials stand for\u003cbr\u003eFrancesca, Salemina, and Penelope, but they resemble the signs for\u003cbr\u003epounds, shillings, and pence so perilously that they introduce an added\u003cbr\u003edistraction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe then places in each column the items in which we are all equal, such\u003cbr\u003eas rooms, attendance, fires, and lights. Then come the extras, which are\u003cbr\u003edifferent for each person: more ale for one, more hot baths for another;\u003cbr\u003emore carriages for one, more lemon squashes for another. Francesca's\u003cbr\u003ecolumn is principally filled with carriages and lemon squashes. You\u003cbr\u003ewould fancy her whole time was spent in driving and drinking, if you\u003cbr\u003ejudged her merely by this weekly statement at the hotel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen she has reached the point of dividing the whole bill into three\u003cbr\u003eparts, so that each person may know what is her share, she adds the\u003cbr\u003ethree together, expecting, not unnaturally, to get the total amount of\u003cbr\u003ethe bill. Not at all. She never comes within thirty shillings of the\u003cbr\u003edesired amount, and she is often three or four guineas to the good or to\u003cbr\u003ethe bad. One of her difficulties lies in her inability to remember\u003cbr\u003ethat in English money it makes a difference where you place a figure,\u003cbr\u003ewhether, in the pound, shilling, or pence column. Having been educated\u003cbr\u003eon the theory that a six is a six the world over, she charged me with\u003cbr\u003esixty shillings' worth of Apollinaris in one week. I pounced on the\u003cbr\u003eerror, and found that she had jotted down each pint in the shilling\u003cbr\u003einstead of in the pence column.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152787390704,"sku":"2940013788114","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013788114_p0.jpg?v=1763590247","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013788114","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}