error certain to increase with age!'

'Now you have started me!' she exclaimed, and lashed the flanks of her
horse.

We had evidently been enacting a part deeply interesting to the
population of Bath, for the heads of all the strolling groups were bent
on us; and when Miss Penrhys cantered away, down dropped eyeglasses, and
the promenade returned to activity. I fancied I perceived that my father
was greeted more cordially on his way back to the hotel.

'You do well, Richie,' he observed, 'in preserving your composure until
you have something to say. Wait for your opening; it will come, and the
right word will come with it. The main things are to be able to stand
well, walk well, and look with an eye at home in its socket: I put you my
hand on any man or woman born of high blood.--Not a brazen eye!--of the
two extremes, I prefer the beaten spaniel sort.--Blindfold me, but I put
you my hand on them. As to repartee, you must have it. Wait for that,
too. Do not,' he groaned, 'do not force it! Bless my soul, what is there
in the world so bad?' And rising to the upper notes of his groan:
'Ignorance, density, total imbecility, is better; I would rather any day
of my life sit and carve for guests--the grossest of human trials--a
detestable dinner, than be doomed to hear some wretched fellow--and you
hear the old as well as the young--excruciate feelings which, where they
exist, cannot but be exquisitely delicate. Goodness gracious me! to see
the man pumping up his wit! For me, my visage is of an unalterable
gravity whenever I am present at one of these exhibitions. I care not if
I offend. Let them say I wish to revolutionize society--I declare to you,
Richie boy, delightful to my heart though I find your keen stroke of
repartee, still your fellow who takes the thrust gracefully, knows when
he's traversed by a master-stroke, and yields sign of it, instead of
plunging like a spitted buffalo and asking us to admire his agility--you
follow me?--I say I hold that man--and I delight vastly in ready wit; it
is the wine of language!--I regard that man as the superior being. True,
he is not so entertaining.'

My father pressed on my arm to intimate, with a cavernous significance of
eyebrow, that Captain DeWitt had the gift of repartee in perfection.

'Jorian,' said he, 'will you wager our editor declines to dine with us?'

The answer struck me as only passable. I think it was:

'When rats smell death in toasted cheese.'

Captain