d of mine--where is he?"

"There," and you point to the name on the plan and nod over to the other
side of the table.

"No, that's not Snuffers! I recollect now he told me he would not be
able to come. That's Major Bangs, a guest asked to fill a vacant chair."

Similarly you find that the eye-glass youth is _not_ Canon Dormouse, the
clerical-looking gentleman _not_ the Master of the Scalpers' Company,
and so on. Oh, they are a capital idea, those plans!

On the occasion in question I met one of the Sheriffs of the City, who
is also an Alderman--not a fat, apoplectic, greasy, vulgar Cr[oe]sus,
but a handsome, thoughtful-looking gentleman, decidedly under fifty,
who might be anything but an Alderman. But indeed the long-accepted type
of an Alderman is exploded--such a type, bursting with good dinners,
wealth and vulgarity, must explode--and the ph[oe]nix which has risen
from his ashes would scarcely be recognised by the most liberal of
naturalists as belonging to the same species. John Leech may have had
living examples for his gross and repulsive monuments of gluttony; in my
own experience, however, I find a gulf of great magnitude between the
Alderman of caricature and the Alderman I have met in the flesh. The
former has gone over to the majority of "four-bottle men" and other
bygone phenomena.

Well, let us return to the dinner. The fare is excellent, the company
delightful, and I am just revelling in that beatific state of mind born
of a sufficiency of the good things of this earth, when nothing seems to
me more pleasant than a City dinner, when I am tapped upon the shoulder
by the Toastmaster, who bears a warrant to consign me to misery. I have
to make a speech. I have passed through the ordeal before, but I find
that familiarity, as far as speech-making is concerned, breeds no
contempt. Between the City and the art in which I am interested there
exists no affinity, and this perhaps is a blessing in disguise, as for
once in a way one is of necessity compelled to "sink the shop." However,
it is soon over. A plunge, a gasp or two, a few quick strokes, and I am
through the breakers and on the shore--I mean on my seat. That was years
ago--I am an old hand now.

I never could subscribe to that unwritten and unhonoured law which
provides that an after-dinner speaker is entitled to five minutes in
which to apologise for his incompetency in that capacity, and fifty-five
minutes in which to speechify; and I have often w