, taking care, of
course, to speak in a low voice. In that way you may have comparative
peace. Everything, however, depends on the calibre of your neighbors. If
they agree to look upon you as an honorable antagonist, and so to fight
fair, the victory will be to him who deserves it; that is to say, to the
craftier man of the two. But talkers, as a rule, do not fight fair. They
consider silent men their prey. It will thus be seen that I distinguish
between talkers, admitting that some of them are worse than others. The
lowest in the social scale is he who stabs you in the back, as it were,
instead of crossing swords. If one of the gentlemen introduced to you is
of that type, he will not be ashamed to say, "Speaking of Emin Pasha,
I wonder if Mr. Chamberlain is interested in the relief expedition.
I don't know if I told you that my father----" and there he is, fairly
on horseback. It is seldom of any use to tempt him into other channels.
Better turn to your traveller and let him describe the different routes
to Egyptian Equatorial Provinces, with his own views thereon. Allow him
even to draw a map of Africa with a fork on the table-cloth. A talker of
this kind is too full of his subject to insist upon answering questions,
so that he does not trouble you much. It is his own dinner that is
spoiled rather than yours. Treat in the same way as the Chamberlain
talker the man who sits down beside you and begins, "Remarkable man,
Mr. Gladstone."

There was a ventilator in my room, which sometimes said "Crik-crik!"
reminding us that no one had spoken for an hour. Occasionally, however,
we had lapses of speech, when Gilray might tell over again--though not
quite as I mean to tell it--the story of his first pipeful of the
Arcadia, or Scrymgeour, the travelled man, would give us the list of
famous places in Europe where he had smoked. But, as a rule, none of us
paid much attention to what the others said, and after the last pipe the
room emptied--unless Marriot insisted on staying behind to bore me with
his scruples--by first one and then another putting his pipe into his
pocket and walking silently out of the room.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV.

MY PIPES.

In a select company of scoffers my brier was known as the Mermaid. The
mouth-piece was a cigarette-holder, and months of unwearied practice
were required before you found the angle at which the bowl did not drop
off.

[Illustration]

This brings me to one of the ma