ise above such puerile ambitions.

Time has shown the fallacy of these dreams. All that has been
accomplished is the displacement of the objective point; the desire, the
mania for a handle to one's name is as prevalent as ever. Leave the
centres of civilization and wander in the small towns and villages of our
country. Every other man you meet is introduced as the Colonel or the
Judge, and you will do well not to inquire too closely into the matter,
nor to ask to see the title-deeds to such distinctions. On the other
hand, to omit his prefix in addressing one of these local magnates, would
be to offend him deeply. The women-folk were quick to borrow a little of
this distinction, and in Washington to-day one is gravely presented to
Mrs. Senator Smith or Mrs. Colonel Jones. The climax being reached by
one aspiring female who styles herself on her visiting cards, "Mrs.
Acting-Assistant-Paymaster Robinson." If by any chance it should occur
to any one to ask her motive in sporting such an unwieldy handle, she
would say that she did it "because one can't be going about explaining
that one is not just ordinary Mrs. Robinson or Thompson, like the
thousand others in town." A woman who cannot find an excuse for assuming
such a prefix will sometime have recourse to another stratagem, to
particularize an ordinary surname. She remembers that her husband, who
ever since he was born has been known to everybody as Jim, is the proud
possessor of the middle name Ivanhoe, or Pericles (probably the result of
a romantic mother's reading); so one fine day the young couple bloom out
as Mr. and Mrs. J. Pericles Sparks, to the amusement of their friends,
their own satisfaction, and the hopeless confusion of their tradespeople.

Not long ago a Westerner, who went abroad with a travelling show, was
received with enthusiasm in England because it was thought "The
Honorable" which preceded his name on his cards implied that although an
American he was somehow the son of an earl. As a matter of fact he owed
this title to having sat, many years before in the Senate of a
far-western State. He will cling to that "Honorable" and print it on his
cards while life lasts. I was told the other day of an American carpet
warrior who appeared at court function abroad decorated with every
college badge, and football medal in his possession, to which he added at
the last moment a brass trunk check, to complete the brilliancy of the
effect. This latter