become
lost arts, and we shall take our sustenance in the form of tablets
of concentrated things." Our esteemed contemporary appears to think
that such a system would necessarily do away with all conviviality
and social intercourse; but, unless MR. PUNCH'S clairvoyant is
liable to error (which is absurd), we need not take quite so gloomy
a view of the future. People will still entertain, only the dinner
of the next century will be a more economical and less tedious
function, and, instead of having to go through a trying interview
with her cook, the coming hostess will merely look in at the nearest
food chemist's, when some such conversation as the following will
settle the whole business.

_Hostess._ We've some people coming in to take a few tablets with us
this evening; what do you think I'd better have?

_The Food Chemist._ You will require _soup_, of course, madam. I could
send you one of these patent soup-sprinklers, exceedingly simple to
work, and quite the fashion in the highest circles: the butler sprays
each guest before showing them upstairs. We supply the machine, charged
with the very best soup, at ninepence a night.

_Hostess._ No, I don't want anything _fussy_, it's quite an informal
little gathering. An ounce of those mock-turtle jujubes at fourpence I
had last time will do very well.

_The F. C._ Very good, madam. Then, with regard to fish? I can strongly
recommend these bi-carbonate of cod and oyster sauce lozenges, or I have
some sulphate of salmon and cucumber pastilles, that I think you would
like, ninepence the quarter-of-a-pound.

_Hostess._ I'm afraid I mustn't be extravagant. I'll take a small bottle
of condensed smelt tabloids (the _sixpenny_ size), and what are left
will come in nicely for the children's dinner next day.

_The F. C._ Precisely so, madam. And as to _entrees_--will you have
cockscomb cachous or sweetbread pilules?

_Hostess._ It makes such a _long_ dinner. I don't want a lot of things.

_The F. C._ In _that_ case, madam, I think I have the very article--a
most elegant electro-chemical preparation, combining _entree_, joint,
and bird, with just a trace of vegetable matter, put up in small
capsules, at one and elevenpence halfpenny the box of one dozen.

_Hostess._ That would be cheaper than having each course in separate
tablets, _wouldn't_ it? I think I'll try a box. What wonderful
improvements they bring out nowadays, to be s