ce the difference,
or else he does. If he does not, he continues to flounder heavily along
in pursuit of the well-beloved, oblivious of the fact that he is wasting
his efforts on an understudy. After an appropriate interval the cold
truth is revealed to him in a hysterical duet, and he goes home, glaring
defiantly, but feeling an entire and unmitigated ass.

Or he may actually recognise that Dilly has been replaced by
Dolly,--this is what happens when the case is a really serious one,--and
if this occurs he is more sorrowful than angry, poor fellow, for he sees
that he is being trifled with; and your true lover is the most
desperately earnest person in the world. In either case the _affaire_
terminates then and there. And that is how my sisters-in-law, with
adroitness and despatch, return immature and undesirable suitors to
their native element. The whole proceeding reminds me irresistibly of
the Undersized Fish Bill, a measure whose progress I once assisted in
its course through a Committee of the House.

However, having been bidden to procure a Private Secretary, I meekly set
about looking for one. One night at dinner we held a symposium on the
subject, and endeavoured to evolve an outline of the kind of gentleman
who was likely to suit us. The following is a _precis_ of the result. I
leave the intelligent reader to trace each item to its author; also the
various parenthetical comments on the same:--

(a) He must be a 'Varsity man.

(b) He must be able to keep accounts, and transact business generally.

(c) He must be content with a salary of two hundred a-year, with
board and residence in the house. ("He can have that little
room off the library for a sitting-room, dear, and sleep in
the old night-nursery.")

(d) He must not wear celluloid collars or made-up ties. ("But he'll
_have_ to, poor dear, if the Infant Samuel only gives him two
hundred a-year.")

(e) He must be prepared to run through my speeches before I deliver
them. ("I suppose that means _write_ them!"), look up my
subject-matter, verify my references, and so on. ("That _will_
be an improvement. But what will the halfpenny papers do then,
poor things?")

(f) He must be the sort of man that one can have in to a dinner-party
without any fear of accidents. ("Yes. He _must_ be all right about
peas, asparagus, and liqueurs. _And_ finger-bowls, dearest. You
remember the man who drank out of his at that