that works
unerringly, (Pope _blotted_ most disgracefully,) and goes right
_ahead_. The precious _morceau_ is concluded, and the improvisatore's
name appears in a constellation of zig-zags.

TABLES D'HOTES--MR SNAPLEY.

Did you never meet Mr Snapley?--Mr Snapley was the greatest of
bores--he bored holes in your self-complacency, and riddled your
patience through and through; to put up with him was hard, to put him
down was impossible, (your long tolerated nuisance of fifty is always
incorrigible.) His bore was surprising considering the smallness of
his calibre; like a meagre gimlet, he would drill a small hole in some
unimportant statement, and then gather up his _opima spolia_, and
march off to the sound of his own trumpet. For instance, on convicting
you of assigning a fine picture to a wrong church or gallery, he
denied all your pretensions to judge of the picture itself. He had a
reindeer's length of tongue, (how often did we wish it salted and
dried!) and the splutter of words it sent forth, took off, as often
happens, sufficient observation of the miserably small stock of ideas
that he had to work upon. He enjoyed, as we all do, the blameless
pleasure of dining out as often as he could; when, though he did not
consume all the provisions, he would willingly have taken possession
of the whole of the talk, (_that_ being his notion of a conversation.)
When one had to dine at the same table with him, one contrived to take
up a position as remote as possible from the interruption of his thin,
wiry, ill-modulated voice--the _false_ suavity of which in saying
impertinent things was really so disagreeable, that one would have
renounced the society of wit or beauty on the right hand, rather than
have been flanked by Mr Snapley on the _left_, and thankfully have
accepted the companionship, _pro hac vice_, of the plainest woman or
the dullest man of the party, to be only completely out of his reach.
Your _soup_ you _might_ take in peace, for he was at this time
studying the composition of the party, and the chances of endurance or
resistance inscribed on the countenance of the guests; but the moment
an opportunity occurred of correcting or cavilling with any of those
unprecise and generally unchallenged observations, the interruption of
which is at the cost of the quietness of the repast, Mr Snapley's
voice was heard! You were too glad, of course, to give up the trifling
point out of which he had raised a discussion; but