[Illustration:  TRIUMPHS OF THE FUNNY MAN.

Hired Waiter (handling the liqueurs). “PLEASE, SIR, DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH—­I SHALL SPILL ’EM ALL!”]

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WRITE AND WRONG.

As so many private letters are sold at public sales nowadays, it has become necessary to consider the purport of every epistle regarded, so to speak, from a post-mortem point of view.  If a public man expresses a confidential opinion in the fulness of his heart to an intimate friend, or proposes an act of charity to a cherished relative, he may rest assured that, sooner or later, both communications will be published to an unsympathetic and autograph-hunting world.  Under these circumstances it may be well to answer the simplest communications in the most guarded manner possible.  For instance, a reply to a tender of hospitality might run as follows:—­

    Private and Confidential.  Not negotiable.

Mr. DASH BLANK has much pleasure in accepting Mr. BLANK DASH’s invitation to dinner on the 8th inst.

N.B.—­This letter is the property of the Writer.  Not for publication.  All rights reserved.

Or, if the writer feels that his letter, if it gets into the hands of the executors, will be sold, he must adopt another plan.  It will be then his object to so mix up abuse of the possible vendors with ordinary matter, that they (the possible vendors) may shrink, after the death of the recipient, from making their own condemnation public.  The following may serve as a model for a communication of this character.  The words printed in italics in the body of the letter are the antidotal abuse introduced to prevent a posthumous sale by possible executors.

Private and Confidential.  Not to be published.  Signature a forgery.

DEAR OLD MAN,—­I nearly completed my book. Your nephew, TOM LESLEIGH, is an ass. My wife is slowly recovering from influenza. Your Aunt, JANE JENKINS, wears a wig. TOMMY, you will be glad to learn, has come out first of twenty in his new class at school. Your Uncle, BENJAMIN GRAHAM, is a twaddling old bore. I am thinking of spending the Midsummer holidays with the boys and their mother at Broadstairs. Your Cousin, JACK JUGGERLY, is a sweep that doesn’t belong to a single respectable Club. Trusting that you will burn this letter, to prevent its sale after we are gone,

    I remain, yours affectionately,

    BOBBY.

N.B.—­The foregoing letter is the property of the Author, and, as it is only intended for private circulation, must not be printed.  Solicitors address,—­Ely Place.

But perhaps the best plan will be, not to write at all.  The telegraph, at the end of the century, costs but a halfpenny a word, and we seem to be within measurable distance of the universal adoption of the telephone.  Under these circumstances, it is easy to take heed of the warning contained in that classical puzzle of our childhood, Litera scripta manet.