bring our sewing. No more we enjoy those delightful excursions to
everywhere--interrupting one another _apropos des bottes_, and capping
an appreciation of Wagner with an anecdote about a mad turtle. Yet this
is the only natural style of conversation. Who ever keeps to the point
in real life? It is bad enough in examinations for the examiners to ask
you about Henry II. when you are anxious to tell them about Elizabeth;
or to demand your ideas on the manufacture of hydrochloric acid when the
subject nearest your heart is the composition of ammonia. But
conversation will not bear such inquisitorial pinning down to a
particular point. It becomes a dead specimen butterfly instead of a
living, fluttering creature. I think someone ought to tell the editors
that they are simply ruining the club. I shudder to think what will
become of it in five years' time, when nobody will belong to it but
ladies and parsons. I would resign at once if it were not for sheer
generosity. The generosity of the editors is, indeed, beyond all cavil.
But even their generosity has its limits. It is as certain as
quarter-day that if I do not fill my allotted space I shall not get
paid. And yet, in the absence of any experience of the requisite nature,
it is quite impossible for me to say one word on the subject I have been
asked to talk about. I don't wish to tell a lie or to throw away money,
but it looks as if I must do one or the other. Really, it's the most
awkward predicament I was ever in.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April
1893, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IDLER MAGAZINE ***

***** This file should be named 22130.txt or 22130.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/1/3/22130/

Produced by Victorian/Edwardian Pictorial Magazines, Anne
Storer, Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm e