k of it, anyway, when we met two little boys about ten years
old--perhaps one was a little older; one looked about ten, and the
other about eleven, or perhaps even twelve, although I think ten would
come nearer to it--and they asked us in a tone between a whine and a
cry--the word whimper more nearly describes it--if we would buy either
a _Sun_ or a _World_--I've forgotten which."

Delectable as honesty is in a bank clerk, or would be in a lawyer, one
yearns for a little less accuracy in the moral makeup of the
too-accurate man; for a little of the celestial leaven of exaggeration
in the dusty dryness of his dead-level garrulousness. What difference
does it make whether the Revolutionary War took place before or after
the discovery of America, as long as you make your war anecdote
interesting? Who cares whether Napoleon or Wellington came out ahead
at Waterloo, as long as your listener is kept awake by your recital?

I related a sprightly incident only last night about a watch which
Francis the Second gave to Mary Stuart, only with my usual airy touch
I said Francis the Second gave it to Marie Antoinette! What difference
does it make? They were both Marys, and they are both dead.

A most unpleasant old party corrected me, and added: "Francis died
about two hundred years before Marie Antoinette was born."

"Then all the more of a compliment that he should have given her the
watch!" I said. And I fancy I had him there.

That is the sort of man who interrupts his wife's dinner-stories all
the way through with, "1812, my dear"; "Ouida, not Emerson"; "Herod,
not Homer"; until _I_ shouldn't be surprised to see her throw a plate
at his head. Oh, isn't it fine that one does not dare to do all the
things one feels like doing in society?

There is only one way to get even with the too-accurate man, and that
is, when he has finished his most exciting story, to say, "And then
what happened next?"

Accuracy is almost fatal to a flow of spirits. If one is obliged to
weigh one's words, one may live to be called a worthy old soul, but
one will not be in demand at dinner-parties.

The too-accurate man need not pride himself upon his honesty above his
fellow-men. Oftenest he is to be found paying lithe of mint, anise,
and cumin, and neglecting the weightier matters of the law--justice,
mercy, and truth. He strains at a gnat and swallows a camel. He is not
more trustworthy than the man whose conversation is embellished with
hyper