ns
to kill superstition. Some, like Mr. Andrew Lang, may think it a pity
to interfere with this humbug, but I venture to think it is a charity
when one considers the absurdity of educated men of the present day
making themselves unhappy through the stupid nonsense of the dark ages.
For instance, take two of my most intimate friends. One in particular
suffered in mind and body through having a supposed fatal number. This
number was 56, and as he approached that age he felt that that year
would be his last. Fancy that for a man of the world, who is also a
public man, and a member of the Government at the time of the dinner! He
was also a charming companion and a delightful friend, and no man I knew
had a wider circle of acquaintance. I happened to accompany him in a six
weeks' tour on the Continent during the year he believed fatal to him,
or perhaps it may have been the year previous; anyway, he was suffering
from that horrible complaint, superstition. He first made me aware of it
the night we arrived in Paris by thumping at my door in a terrible state
to implore me to change rooms with him--his number was 56, and it
terrified him! Next day we travelled in a carriage numbered 56, and my
friend was miserable. At the theatre his seat was 56, the ticket for his
coat was 56, 56 was the number of the first shop he entered to buy some
trifle I suggested to him. Indeed, I may at once confess that I took
care that 56 should crop up as often as possible, as I thought that that
would be the best way to cure the patient. Not a bit of it; he got
worse, and was really ill until his 56th birthday was passed.

[Illustration: SQUINT-EYED WAITER.]

To take the chair at this "most unique" banquet, as the papers styled
it, was no easy task, and to be waited upon by cross-eyed menials was
quite enough to make a sensitive, imitative being like myself very
nervous. Some of this band of gentlemen who had neglected to go to the
Ophthalmic Hospital seemed to consider that their being bought up for
the occasion was a great honour, and one youth in particular, with black
hair, a large sharp nose--and oh! such a squint!--whose duty it was to
open the door of the reception-room, at which I stood to receive the
guests as they arrived, was positively proud of his unfortunate
disfigurement, and every time he opened the door he flashed his weirdly
set eyes upon me to such an extent that I felt myself unintentionally
squinting at every guest I shook han