e masquerade of
unaccustomed clothes. I am deft with a bow-knot and patient with my
collar. It may be partly a perversity of sex, inasmuch as we men are
sometimes "taken" by our women folk. But chiefly it comes from an
unwillingness to pledge the future, lest on the very night my own
hearth appear the better choice. Here we are, with legs stretched for
comfort toward the fire--easy and unbuttoned. Let the rain beat on the
glass! Let chimneys topple! Let the wind whistle to its shrill
companions of the North! But although I am led growling and reluctant
to my host's door--with stiffened paws, as it were, against the
sill--I usually enjoy myself when I am once inside. To see me across
the salad smiling at my pretty neighbor, no one would know how
churlish I had been on the coming of the invitation.

I have attended my share of formal dinners. I have dined with the
magnificent H----s and their Roman Senator has announced me at the
door; although, when he asked my name in the hall, I thought at first
in my ignorance that he gave me directions about my rubbers. No one
has faced more forks and knives, or has apportioned his implements
with nicer discrimination among the meats. Not once have I been forced
to stir my after-dinner coffee with a soup spoon. And yet I look back
on these grand occasions with contentment chiefly because they are
past. I am in whole agreement with Cleopatra when she spoke
slightingly of her salad days--surely a fashionable afternoon affair
at a castle on the river Nile--when, as she confessed, she was young
and green in judgment.

It is usually a pleasure to meet distinguished persons who, as a rule,
are friendly folk who sit in peace and comfort. But if they are lugged
in and set up stiffly at a formal dinner they are too much an
exhibition. In this circumstance they cannot be natural and at their
best. And then I wonder how they endure our abject deference and
flabby surrender to their opinions. Would it not destroy all interest
in a game of bowling if the wretched pins fell down before the hit
were made? It was lately at a dinner that our hostess held in
captivity three of these celebrated lions. One of them was a famous
traveler who had taken a tiger by its bristling beard. The second was
a popular lecturer. The third was in distemper and crouched quietly at
her plate. The first two are sharp and bright and they roared to
expectation. But I do not complain when lions take possession of the
cag