my
friend What's-his-name?' but rather such another biped as Tennyson had
in mind when he wrote,--

Since we deserved the name of friends
And thine effect so lives in me,
A part of mine may live in thee
And move thee on to noble ends.

I grant you, peering out of my tub at the world, that there are many to
whom this thought sounds sublimated and extravagant: a poet says this
sort of thing because such is his poetic business. We come nearer
perhaps to the universal understanding in John Hay's definition that
'Friends are the sunshine of life'; for it is equally true that all men
seek sunlight and that every man seeks a friend after his own kind and
nature. The best and most intelligent of us admit the rarity and value
of friendship; the worst and most ignorant of us are unwittingly the
better for knowing some friendly companion. But these afternoon teas are
inimical to friendship; and the first duty of a hostess is to separate,
expeditiously and without hope of again coming together, any other two
guests who appear to be getting acquainted. On this count, even were we
not Automaton Tea-Goers, debarred by inherent stability from any normal
human intercourse, the afternoon tea must prove more disheartening than
helpful. We might at best glimpse a potential friend as the desert
islander sights a passing sail on the far horizon.

There is, alas, no Universal Reason why a man should go to an afternoon
tea!

So the matter looks to me in my tub, but perhaps, like Diogenes, I am a
cynic philosopher. After all, when a thing cannot be escaped, why seek
for reasons not to escape it? Let us, rather, be brave if we cannot be
gay; cheerful if we cannot talk; ornamental if we cannot move. As the
grave-digger in Elsinore churchyard might say: 'Here lies the afternoon
tea; good: here stands the gentleman; good: If the gentleman go to this
afternoon tea and bore himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes,--mark
you that? But if the afternoon tea come to him and bore him, he bores
not himself; argal, he that goes not willingly to the afternoon tea
wearies not his own life.'

So, in effect, he that is _dragged_ to an afternoon tea does not go at
all; and when he gets there, he is really somewhere else. This happy
thought is a little difficult to reconcile with circumstances; but when
one has become thoroughly soaked in it, it is a great help.

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors ha