ith ladies, you may let an oath slip. (Better not let your aunt hear
you.) Apologise humbly at once, of course. But it will give them a
glimpse of the lurid splendour of your private life.

And that brings us to the central thing of the Blade's life, the eternal
Feminine! Pity them, be a little sorry for them--the poor souls cannot
be Blades. They must e'en sit and palpitate while the Blade flashes. The
accomplished Blade goes through life looking unspeakable wickedness at
everything feminine he meets, old and young, rich and poor, one with
another. He reeks with intrigue. Every Blade has his secrets and
mysteries in this matter--remorse even for crimes. You do not know all
that his handsome face may hide. Even he does not know. He may have sat
on piers and talked to shop-girls, kissed housemaids, taken barmaids to
music halls, conversed with painted wickedness in public places--nothing
is too much for him. And oh! the reckless protestations of love he has
made, the broken promises, the broken hearts! Yet men must be Blades,
though women may weep; and every Blade must take his barmaid to a music
hall at least once, even if she be taller than himself. Until then his
manhood is not assured.

Just one hint in conclusion. A Blade who collects stamps, or keeps tame
rabbits, or eats sweets, oranges, or apples in the streets, or calls
names publicly after his friends, is no Blade at all, but a boy still.
So, with our blessing, he swaggers on his way and is gone. A Don Juan as
fresh as spring, a rosebud desperado. May he never come upon just cause
for repentance!

OF CLEVERNESS

APROPOS OF ONE CRICHTON

Crichton is an extremely clever person--abnormally, indeed almost
unnaturally, so. He is not merely clever at this or that, but clever all
round; he gives you no consolations. He goes about being needlessly
brilliant. He caps your jests and corrects your mistakes, and does your
special things over again in newer and smarter ways. Any really
well-bred man who presumed so far would at least be plain or physically
feeble, or unhappily married by way of apology, but the idea of so much
civility seems never to have entered Crichton's head. He will come into
a room where we are jesting perhaps, and immediately begin to flourish
about less funny perhaps but decidedly more brilliant jests, until at
last we retire one by one from the conversation and watch him with
savage, weary eyes over our pipes. He invariably beats me at