wit and keen of perception as we know them to be, can consist. Is it in the want of a certain indescribable and subtle under-current of fun and enjoyment, which the story-teller needs? There is, I believe, a larger capacity for social enjoyment in a man's nature than in a woman's. Their mental conformation, their habits, the things which belong essentially to their very lives, go inevitably to produce this result; and I believe that this, and one other cause, are at the root of this phenomenon to which I have ventured to call attention. The one other cause I take to be that women, with a very few exceptions, are not humorous. They do not appreciate Falstaff, or Dogberry, or Sancho Panza, as men do. There are exceptions, of course, to what is asserted here; and most men who have lived in the world must be acquainted with not a few specimens of womankind who can appreciate a good thing when they hear it, who can enjoy humour, in certain forms, very keenly, and who can tell a story almost perfectly. But these exceptions prove nothing. Nor am I sure that even these are entirely exceptions. The good thing is enjoyed, the humorous sally is understood, and the story is well told; but the good thing and the humorous sally are appreciated with some slight reserve, the attention divided somewhat between these and that "flaunting woman" opposite; and the story is told with some slight variation in the details, or some small defect in the wording, which would not have been there if it had been told by a male professor who thoroughly knew his business. And so the murder is out, and the accusation-not such a very dreadful one after all-is made.

XVII.-SOME OTHER VARIETIES OF TALK.

AND there is another kind of talk, not perhaps very profitable as a subject of consideration, but still sufficiently distinctive, and of a class apart, to be deserving of some notice in this chapter. This is what may be called rich talk-the kind of talk, that is to say, which prevails among rich, or, as they are sometimes called, moneyed men. And here it should be explained that in speaking of "rich men' as we are now doing, it is only a certain class of rich men who are alluded to; those, namely, who have made their money themselves, and who have raised themselves greatly as to social position in so doing. Rich men who havo been born in that condition, and who are, so to speak, used to it, do not, as a rule, talk directly or indirectly about their wealth. They wear their riches as old Roman Catholics do their faith, quietly; while the others, who have made their millions themselves, are like the new converts to Rome, and live in a chronic condition of self-consciousness and fuss. So is it with these self-made rich men.

Has it ever happened to the reader to find himself set down in the midst of a company of such persons-men who have become rich through won

derful diligence and ability shown in the cultivation of some industry to which their lives have been devoted, such as the building of engines, the construction of machinery, the working of contracts, or any other of the different processes by means of which fortunes are made in this country? Croesus! what talk it is that one hears on such an occasion. How wonderfully do these men boast; what a tone they take; what sums of money do they deal with in their conversation, talking of thousand-pound notes as if they were threepenny pieces, and of sums which we who are not of the financial world should regard as comfortable fortunes, as if they were mere trifles to be won or lost, just as it happened, in the course of the morning.

"I lost thirty thousand pounds to-day," says one of these rich talkers, with a smile, as he sips his claret after dinner, "through that failure of Piston and Break's. Piston came to me in the morning of the day before yesterday, and told me a cock-and-a-bull story about some Indian contract which the firm had to fulfil, but for which, before they could undertake it, a certain sum of money was required to be sunk in preliminary expenses. Well, I advanced the money, and the long and the short of it was that the whole thing was an utter swindle. There was no question of an Indian contract at all; and Piston has just walked off to the Continent with the whole of my money without even sharing it with the rest of the firm. I don't suppose I shall ever see a halfpenny."

The members of the company express in tolerably strong terms their opinion of the transaction, but do not appear to consider the loss as in any degree a considerable one.

"It isn't the money that I mind," says the first speaker. "It's tho being done."

"Not mind the money?" say you, the outsider, who are listening to this wondrous conversation.

"Such losses are all in the way of business," replies the capitalist. "I lose thirty thousand one morning, and I gain fifty thousand the next. I take it as it comes."

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Before your understanding has recovered from this rough assault, you find that another of these gentlemen is holding forth in the same strain. It is the host of the evening who is boasting this time. "No," he begins --and a very wonderful, but common, way of opening a conversation it is to prelude what you have to say with this apparently unmeaning monosyllable No; my plan with regard to wine is a very simple one. I give Binney a general order, when anything superlatively good comes into the market, instantly to purchase it on my account. I don't care about price, you know. I want a good thing, and a good thing I will have, whatever it may cost. That wine you are drinking now stands me in twenty shillings a bottle; and I've more expensive wine than that, mind you, in my cellar. You'll say it's drinking gold. So it is; and a very good use to put gold to, it seems to me."

"What I want," continues this unostentatious gentleman, "is, as I said before, a good thing. It's the same with everything, I don't care what. Take pictures, now. What do I do when I want a picture? First of all, I select a man I can depend upon; then I go to him, and I say, 'Now look here, Sir Edwin, I want one of your finest works. Do it for me, and do it at once. As to terms and all that, I leave everything to you. Any price, any size, any subject.' That's my plan; and what's the consequence? Why, I've got a collection of pictures, as I think you'll admit if you look round these walls, which are equal, if not superior, to what you'll find in any gentleman's house in London."

Such is a brief specimen of the conversation of those self-made rich men, so many of whom are to be met with in almost all mixed companies just now. It is not very pleasant to listen to; there is so much of arrogance and of purse-pride in it. We may easily conceive, however, that the temptation to engage in such self-gratulatory talk must, under the circumstances, be very great; and that it must be extremely difficult for a man to conceal the surprise which must sometimes take possession of him when he realizes the fine position in which his own labours and his own cleverness have served to place him.

I have not much more space at my disposal, but there is one other variety of talk which claims a word or two of comment very imperatively, and on which that word or two must certainly be bestowed. The variety in question is what may be called facetious talk.

Without going so far as to say that the "man who would make a pun would pick a pocket," one may still feel that the individual who sets up as a professed punster and farçeur is a person who may justly be regarded with something almost approaching to alarm by all those who desire that general conversation may prosper. For this professed joker, it cannot be too distinctly understood, is not a promoter of talk, but very much the reverse. His efforts are spasmodic and disjointed. A pun leads to nothing; unless, indeed, a second joker happens to be present on the occasion of its delivery, and follows it up with another. This, however, fortunately, does not happen very often; and the usual effect of a pun upon the society to which it is addressed is to produce a pause of more or less duration, according to the greater or less rallying power possessed by the company's constitution. And this silencing influence is not confined. to puns, but is exercised also by all sorts of riddles, plays upon words, and the like. The letting off of any of these verbal fireworks is always followed by silence.

How

Nor is the farçeur himself generally of any value as a talker. can he be? How can he enter thoroughly into any subject, when all the time that such subject is under discussion, he is merely watching the words of those who are speaking, ready to take advantage of any chance expression which the speaker may use which is available for the pinster's purpose. The fact is, that he is obliged to be thus perpetually on the

look-out, or he will infallibly let slip some opportunity of displaying his favourite accomplishment.

How trying those interruptions are. If you have something to say which you really want to say, and which-rare combination of thingsother people want to hear, how entirely is the wind taken out of your sails by the pun which breaks into your statement, and for the introduction of which something in your narrative has unhappily furnished an opportunity. For you are never safe with a punster. Let the most skilful of talkers incautiously drop a word which is capable of distortion, or a phrase susceptible of two interpretations, and his prospect of getting on with what he has to say is a bad one. The punster seizes the chance of letting off his squib, and it fizzes and splutters about, and catches the attention of those whom the talker had calculated on as listeners, and who, before it was let off, were really interested in what was being said. Of the devastating effects of such interruptions as these, the guilty individual who is responsible for them seems to think nothing. Indeed one of the most curious effects of this habit of punning on the person who has once contracted it is, that it renders him temporarily insensible to all sorts of influences which he would feel keenly in his better moments. I have seen a punster, when some subject of too grave, or even perhaps distressing a nature to admit of the introduction of a joke has been brought up, absolutely wrestling with the pun which some chance word has suggested to him, with a hardly suppressed grin on his face, and a twinkle of merriment in his eye. And yet this would be a man capable of the warmest affection, and who would put himself out of the way to any extent to serve a friend.

one but a punster, We all expostulate

Does anybody really enjoy a pun? Certainly no and even he, as I firmly believe, only likes his own. when any such thing is attempted. We cry jocosely, "Turn him out;" we say that "it really is too bad." We seek to bring shame and discredit upon him by making supernaturally bad puns ourselves, and fathering them upon him-"as So-and-so would say." And yet our indignation is in almost all cases tempered with something of leniency; for the punster is generally popular in spite of this vicious habit of his, and is, in truth, almost always in other respects a very good fellow. Moreover, it must be admitted that this particular offender, like most of the other objectionable talkers whose defects have been pointed out in these pages, has his use. That practice of his of breaking into a conversation is occasionally-as when an acknowledged bore has got the conversational ball into his hands -of real value to society. For the rest I believe that the habit of playing with words is altogether incurable when once a man has got fairly into it, and that, abuse him as we may, the habitual punster will go on punning to the end of time.

XVIII. TOO MUCH TALK.

So much has been said in these chapters in praise of talk, and so many methods of promoting its exercise have been put forward, that it seems desirable, before bringing these notes to a close, to say something also on the other side-something on what may be called excessive talk—with an example by way of illustration. Let us take, then, the example of that noisy individual, Barker by name, of whom it was said in a previous chapter, that although valuable at a dinner-table on account of the noise which he could be relied on to make, he was wearying to the last degree under any other circumstances, and as a co-resident in a country-house simply unbearable.

The talk of this man begins with the day's beginning. I was going to say that you first hear his voice in the morning echoing along the passages and lobbies into which his chamber door opens, but truth to say, you hear him-if you happen to sleep in a neighbouring room to his-long before he emerges from his apartment. You hear him talking to his servant, as the man lays out his "things" or helps him to dress. What it is that he talks about at this time must, as I do not choose to condescend to pump his valet, ever remain a mystery; but he does talk, and vigorously too, waking in full possession of his faculties, and evidently in no respect muddled or sleepy. When he opens his door, however, and issues forth into the passage, it is different, and his speech is intelligible to all who choose to listen. The matter of that speech depends, of course, upon the nature of the audience which destiny throws in his way. Sometimes a child of the house, or a couple of them, will fall into his clutches, and then he is especially loud and frisky. "What, Walter, up already! why, what a fine boy you are! And where's Jacky, eh? What, still in bed? For shame; why, when I was Jacky's age, I used to be out with the keepers long before this, and up to all sorts of mischief-all sorts of mischief, Walter, all sorts of mischief;" and his voice gets fainter and more indistinct in the distance, as he tells of these mischievous doings, till at last you hear the breakfast-room door close on him. On another occasion he will run against a housemaid with her brushes and pail. He recognizes her directly. What, Bush," he says, "and how are you getting on? I remember you very well. I saw your brother only the other day. He is at Lord Baldchild's, I think: yes-oh, yes, he is doing very well-in a good situation as under-gamekeeper, and gives great satisfaction."

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I don't know why it is, but this corridor-talk of our friend Barker's seems to me to indicate his nature, and to give the idea of his noisiness, more perfectly than any other of his daily vocal performances that could be treated of. Of course, he does not really talk more in this particular passage or lobby than elsewhere. Wherever he is it is the same story all the day through! During the sixteen or seventeen hours which are