? And so of the people you
know; can't you pick out the full-flavored, coarse-fibred characters from
the delicate, fine-fibred ones? And in the same person, don't you know
the same two shades in different parts of the character that you find in
the wing and thigh of a partridge? I suppose you poets may like white
meat best, very probably; you had rather have a wing than a drumstick, I
dare say.

--Why, yes,--said I,--I suppose some of us do. Perhaps it is because a
bird flies with his white-fleshed limbs and walks with the dark-fleshed
ones. Besides, the wing-muscles are nearer the heart than the
leg-muscles.

I thought that sounded mighty pretty, and paused a moment to pat myself
on the back, as is my wont when I say something that I think of superior
quality. So I lost my innings; for the Master is apt to strike in at the
end of a bar, instead of waiting for a rest, if I may borrow a musical
phrase. No matter, just at this moment, what he said; but he talked the
Member of the Haouse asleep again.

They have a new term nowadays (I am speaking to you, the Reader) for
people that do a good deal of talking; they call them "conversationists,"
or "conversationalists "; talkists, I suppose, would do just as well. It
is rather dangerous to get the name of being one of these phenomenal
manifestations, as one is expected to say something remarkable every time
one opens one's mouth in company. It seems hard not to be able to ask for
a piece of bread or a tumbler of water, without a sensation running round
the table, as if one were an electric eel or a torpedo, and couldn't be
touched without giving a shock. A fellow is n't all battery, is he? The
idea that a Gymnotus can't swallow his worm without a coruscation of
animal lightning is hard on that brilliant but sensational being. Good
talk is not a matter of will at all; it depends--you know we are all
half-materialists nowadays--on a certain amount of active congestion of
the brain, and that comes when it is ready, and not before. I saw a man
get up the other day in a pleasant company, and talk away for about five
minutes, evidently by a pure effort of will. His person was good, his
voice was pleasant, but anybody could see that it was all mechanical
labor; he was sparring for wind, as the Hon. John Morrissey, M. C., would
express himself. Presently,--

Do you,--Beloved, I am afraid you are not old enough,--but do you
remember the days of the tin tinder-box, th