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CRIMPTON. Here is old BEILBY--he is hot from the University Match. He begins to tell me all about it. JONES was awfully well set, but that muff SMITH ran him out. BEILBY does not believe it _was_ out. Odd the spite umpires always have at our side. Feel that I must tear myself from BEILBY, the only man whose conversation really interests me. Here is an English writer on military subjects. I introduce him to the American General. Find he is the Professor, after all. We get down-stairs somehow. BEILBY is opposite me. CRIMPTON is next the Professor. The Military Writer is next the General. Things do not appear to go very smoothly. It seems that the Military one has said something about General BEAUREGARD which he should not have said. The General is getting red. I hate it, when men begin to talk about the American War. Any other war they are welcome to: the Danish War, the war of 1866, the war of 1870, the glorious affair of Majuba. But Americans are touchy about their war, not easy to please them whatever you say. Much best to say nothing. CRIMPTON is laughing at American novels. He does not know that the Professor is an American novelist. What am I to do? I try to kick him under the table. I kick the Mad Doctor, and apologise. Was feeling about for a footstool. BEILBY is trying to talk about Base Ball to the General, who is still red. Nothing is more disagreeable than these international discussions at dinner. Now, a clever host would know how to get out of this; he would start some other subject. I can think of no other subject. Happy thought: gradually glide into American cookery, clams, canvas-backed ducks, what is that dish with a queer name--Jumbo? I don't feel as if it were Jumbo. Squambo? Terapin soup? It sounds rather like the Hebrew for a talisman, or an angel of some sort. However, they are talking about cookery now, and wines. Is there not an American wine called Catawampus? The Mad Doctor has his eye on me; he seems interested. I thought I heard him murmur Aspasia, or Aphasia, or something like that. It is not Catawampus--it is Catawba. I feel that I _patauge_--flounder, I mean. I am getting quite nervous; feel like a man in a powder-magazine, with lighted cigarettes everywhere. If one can withdraw them to the smoking-room, they will settle down somehow. They do. The Military Critic gets into a corner with BEILBY. The Americans and I consort together. Most agreeable fellows; have been everywhere, and seen ev
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