along because I find the slate is'" (Griggs
was now faint with laughter) "'the slate is--is--not
much good without the chalk.'"

Griggs had to stop, with his hand to his side, and lean
against a lamp-post. "I can't, of course, do the Scotch
the way Harry Lauder does it," he repeated.

Exactly. He couldn't do the Scotch and he couldn't do
the rich mellow voice of Mr. Lauder and the face beaming
with merriment, and the spectacles glittering with
amusement, and he couldn't do the slate, nor the "wee
bit chalk"--in fact he couldn't do any of it. He ought
merely to have said, "Harry Lauder," and leaned up against
a post and laughed till he had got over it.

Yet in spite of everything, people insist on spoiling
conversation by telling stories. I know nothing more
dreadful at a dinner table than one of these amateur
raconteurs--except perhaps, two of them. After about
three stories have been told, there falls on the dinner
table an uncomfortable silence, in which everybody is
aware that everybody else is trying hard to think of
another story, and is failing to find it. There is no
peace in the gathering again till some man of firm and
quiet mind turns to his neighbour and says, "But after
all there is no doubt that whether we like it or not
prohibition is coming." Then everybody in his heart says,
"Thank heaven!" and the whole tableful are happy and
contented again, till one of the story-tellers "thinks
of another," and breaks loose.

Worst of all perhaps is the modest story-teller who is
haunted by the idea that one has heard this story before.
He attacks you after this fashion:

"I heard a very good story the other day on the steamer
going to Bermuda"--then he pauses with a certain doubt
in his face--"but perhaps you've heard this?"

"No, no, I've never been to Bermuda. Go ahead."

"Well, this is a story that they tell about a man who
went down to Bermuda one winter to get cured of rheumatism
--but you've heard this?"

"No, no."

"Well he had rheumatism pretty bad and he went to Bermuda
to get cured of it. And so when he went into the hotel
he said to the clerk at the desk--but, perhaps you know
this."

"No, no, go right ahead."

"Well, he said to the clerk, 'I want a room that looks
out over the sea'--but perhaps--"

Now the sensible thing to do is to stop the narrator
right at this point. Say to him quietly and firmly, "Yes,
I have heard that story. I always liked it ever since it
came out in _Tit B