liness, and that admission to his entertainments
is eagerly coveted. But it pleases him to depreciate his own success.
"Oh, yes," he said, in answer to my questions as to the art he
practised, "a few of them come; one or two because they like me; some
because they, think there is going to be a row about attendance at
chapel, and hope to mend matters; one or two because they like to stand
well with the dons, when there is a chance of a fellowship; but the
lowest motive of all," he went on, "was the motive which I heard from
the lips of one on a summer evening, when my windows were all open, and
I was just prepared to receive boarders; an ingenuous friend of mine
beneath said to another unoccupied youth, 'What do you think about
doing a Tipper tonight?' To which the other replied, 'Well, yes, one
ought to do one a term; let's go in at once and get it over.'"

V

CONVERSATION

I cannot help wishing sometimes that English people had more theories
about conversation. Really good talk is one of the greatest pleasures
there is, and yet how rarely one comes across it! There are a good many
people among my acquaintance who on occasions are capable of talking
well. But what they seem to lack is initiative, and deliberate purpose.
If people would only look upon conversation in a more serious light,
much would be gained. I do not of course mean, Heaven forbid! that
people should try to converse seriously; that results in the worst kind
of dreariness, in feeling, as Stevenson said, that one has the brain of
a sheep and the eyes of a boiled codfish. But I mean that the more
seriously one takes an amusement, the more amusing it becomes. What I
wish is that people would apply the same sort of seriousness to talk
that they apply to golf and bridge; that they should desire to improve
their game, brood over their mistakes, try to do better. Why is it that
so many people would think it priggish and effeminate to try to improve
their talk, and yet think it manly and rational to try to shoot better?
Of course it must be done with a natural zest and enjoyment, or it is
useless. What a ghastly picture one gets of the old-fashioned talkers
and wits, committing a number of subjects to memory, turning over a
commonplace book for apposite anecdotes and jests, adding dates to
those selected that they may not tell the same story again too soon,
learning up a list of epigrams, stuck in a shaving-glass, when they are
dressing for dinner, an