versation
must take his course, or he would none of it. Generally he controlled.
If an upstart endeavored to turn the subject, Mr. Pierce waited till the
intruder had done speaking, and then quietly, but firmly would remark:
"Relative to the subject we were discussing a moment ago--" If any one
ventured to speak, even _sotto voce_, before Mr. Pierce had finished all
he had to say, he would at once cease his monologue, wait till the
interloper had finished, and then resume his lecture just where he had
been interrupted. Only once had Mr. Pierce found this method to fail in
quelling even the sturdiest of rivals. The recollection of that day is
still a mortification to him. It had happened on the deck of an ocean
steamer. For thirty minutes he had fought his antagonist bravely. Then,
humbled and vanquished, he had sought the smoking-room, to moisten his
parched throat, and solace his wounded spirit, with a star cocktail. He
had at last met his superior. He yielded the deck to the fog-horn.

At the present moment Mr. Pierce was having things very much his own
way. Seated in the standing-room of a small yacht, were some eight
people. With a leaden sky overhead, and a leaden sea about it, the boat
gently rose and fell with the ground swell. Three miles away could be
seen the flash-light marking the entrance to the harbor. But though
slowly gathering clouds told that wind was coming, the yacht now lay
becalmed, drifting with the ebb tide. The pleasure-seekers had been
together all day, and were decidedly talked out. For the last hour they
had been singing songs--always omitting Mr. Pierce, who never so trifled
with his vocal organs. During this time he had been restless. At one
point he had attempted to deliver his opinion on the relation of verse
to music, but an unfeeling member of the party had struck up "John
Brown's Body," and his lecture had ended, in the usual serial style, at
the most interesting point, without even the promise of a "continuation
in our next." Finally, however, the singers had sung themselves hoarse
in the damp night air, the last "Spanish Cavalier" had been safely
restored to his inevitable true-love, and the sound of voices and banjo
floated away over the water. Mr. Pierce's moment had come.

Some one, and it is unnecessary to mention the sex, had given a sigh,
and regretted that nineteenth century life was so prosaic and
unromantic. Clearing his throat, quite as much to pre-empt the pause as
to art