talk consecutively upon some subject, but that he actually does so, which, in society, is accounted a monstrous crime against manners.  Let him write what he wants to say, and print it; society will either not understand him at all, or will read his works with a dictionary in the secrecy of its own chamber.  But if he will hold his tongue in public, society will give him a cup of tea and treat him almost like a human being for the sake of being said to patronise letters.  Any one who likes society’s tea may drink his fill of it in consideration of wearing a good coat and keeping his wits to himself, but he will not succeed in marrying any of society’s sisters, cousins or aunts without a severe struggle.

Anastase Gouache did not quite understand this.  He sometimes found himself amidst a group of people who were freely discussing some person unknown to him.  On such occasions he held his peace, innocently supposing that his ignorance was without any importance whatsoever, among a set of men and women with whom not to know every detail concerning every one else is to be little better than an outcast.

“Now do tell me all about the Snooks and Montmorency divorce,” says Lady Smyth-Tompkins with a sweetly engaging smile, as she holds out her hand.

“I did not know there was such a case—­I don’t know the people,” you answer.

“Oh!  I thought, of course, you knew all about it,” Lady Smyth-Tompkins replies, and her features turn to stone as she realises that you do not know everybody, and leaves you to your own reflections.

O Thackeray, snobissme maxime!  How well you knew them!

There are no snobs among the Latin races, but there is a worse animal, the sycophant, descended directly from the dinner-tables of ancient Rome.  In old-fashioned houses there are often several of them, headed invariably by the “giornale ambulante,” the walking newspaper, whose business it is to pick up items of news during the day in order to detail them to the family in the evening.  There is a certain old princess who sits every evening with her needlework at the head of a long table in the dismal drawing-room of a gigantic palace.  On each side of the board are seated the old parasites, the family doctor, the family chaplain, the family lawyer, the family librarian, the peripatetic news-sheet and the rest.

“I have been out to-day,” says her excellency.

“Oh!  Ah!  Dear me!  In this weather!  Hear what the princess says!  The princess has been out!” The chorus comes up the table, all the answers reaching her ears at once.

“And I saw, as I drove by, the new monument!  What a ridiculous thing it is.”

“Ho! ho! ho!  Hah! hah! hah!  Dear me!  What a monument!  What fine taste the princess has!  Hear what the princess thinks of the monument!”

“If you will believe it, the bronze horse has a crooked leg.”  “He! he! he!  Hi! hi! hi!  Dear me!  A crooked leg!  How the princess understands horses!  The princess saw that he had a crooked leg!”