ng all their time in solving the intricacies
of those many wonderful puzzles which have appeared lately as a sort
of antidote to the mischief generally supposed to be perpetrated by
the aforesaid gentleman. Unfortunately, an entirely contrary effect is
produced on me. They did not look far enough ahead when they made me.
They could not conceive the wonderful minds of this time, and so did
not endow me with a sufficient quantity of patience. If they could
have imagined those marvelous little tin saucers, with shot running in
and out of horse-shoes, &c., with _me_ in the perspective, well, I
think they would have gone about their work more carefully, and
perhaps brought about a happier result. As it is, the puzzles are
always swept away now at my approach. I have smashed so many.

It is base ingratitude, too, on my part, to bring them to so speedy an
end; for what I owe to those dear little things I am powerless to
express. Those entertaining people who sit speechless, and only answer
yes and no with an eternal smile on their faces: give them a puzzle.
There is no further effort to amuse them required on your part. They
are at once absorbed in "shot." Their only idea is to successfully get
them into their places. They never do; but being good thorough-going
characters will never give up the attempt.

You meet several of these people in the country, but they never get
very friendly. You shock them too much with your "London manners."
They vote you "fast," and turn aside, fearful of contamination for
their daughters.

Oh, the dreariness, the heaviness of a country dinner party! It seems
to last four times as long as any other--parish, horses, or crops the
only topic of conversation. How can you be interested in old Jane
Smith's rheumatism when you have never heard of her before; in the
swelling of a favorite mare's hock, when you did not know it possessed
such a thing. People's views grow so dreadfully narrow, shut up in
their small parish. Their stock of conversation is so very small. It
is wise to find out your dinner partner at once, and avoid that man as
you would a disease until the meal is announced. If not, if you
accidentally get in his neighborhood, and he talks to you, all his
conversation is at once exhausted, and you are obliged to hear it over
again at table, or submit to an interesting silence.

Dinner parties anywhere are, I think, a mistake. It is a wicked waste
of time to spend nearly three hours over e