A humorous friend of mine, Tipton by name, an official of a neighbouring college, told me that he held receptions of undergraduates on Sunday evenings.  I believe that he is in reality a model host, full of resource and sprightliness, and that admission to his entertainments is eagerly coveted.  But it pleases him to depreciate his own success.  “Oh, yes,” he said, in answer to my questions as to the art he practised, “a few of them come; one or two because they like me; some because they, think there is going to be a row about attendance at chapel, and hope to mend matters; one or two because they like to stand well with the dons, when there is a chance of a fellowship; but the lowest motive of all,” he went on, “was the motive which I heard from the lips of one on a summer evening, when my windows were all open, and I was just prepared to receive boarders; an ingenuous friend of mine beneath said to another unoccupied youth, ’What do you think about doing a Tipper tonight?’ To which the other replied, ’Well, yes, one ought to do one a term; let’s go in at once and get it over.’”

V

CONVERSATION

I cannot help wishing sometimes that English people had more theories about conversation.  Really good talk is one of the greatest pleasures there is, and yet how rarely one comes across it!  There are a good many people among my acquaintance who on occasions are capable of talking well.  But what they seem to lack is initiative, and deliberate purpose.  If people would only look upon conversation in a more serious light, much would be gained.  I do not of course mean, Heaven forbid! that people should try to converse seriously; that results in the worst kind of dreariness, in feeling, as Stevenson said, that one has the brain of a sheep and the eyes of a boiled codfish.  But I mean that the more seriously one takes an amusement, the more amusing it becomes.  What I wish is that people would apply the same sort of seriousness to talk that they apply to golf and bridge; that they should desire to improve their game, brood over their mistakes, try to do better.  Why is it that so many people would think it priggish and effeminate to try to improve their talk, and yet think it manly and rational to try to shoot better?  Of course it must be done with a natural zest and enjoyment, or it is useless.  What a ghastly picture one gets of the old-fashioned talkers and wits, committing a number of subjects to memory, turning over a commonplace book for apposite anecdotes and jests, adding dates to those selected that they may not tell the same story again too soon, learning up a list of epigrams, stuck in a shaving-glass, when they are dressing for dinner, and then sallying forth primed to bursting with conversation!  It is all very well to know beforehand the kind of line you would wish to take, but spontaneity is a necessary ingredient of talk, and to make up one’s mind to get certain stories