the fashionable and the vulgar that
their continued existence in this world would be very doubtful. But
the leopard cannot change his spots so easily. While the stars go on
in their courses, until the cooling of the earth puts an end to the
career of life, and the last trace of his ancestral tendency to
imitation disappears as the last man becomes an angel, depend upon it,
George, the fashionable will ever pursue this chimaera of distinguished
correctness, and trail the inseparable howling vulgar in its wake--for
ever chased, like a dog with a tin can attached, by the horror of its
own tail."

Thus my uncle. He had said a few of his things. It is possible his
trick of talking like a disarticulated essay had something to do with
his social discomfort. But anyhow he seemed all the better for the
release.

"Talking of tails, George," he said, "reminds me. I noticed the men at
the Fitz-Brilliants' had their coats cut--well, I should say, just a
half inch shorter here than this of mine. Your man is not up to date.
I must get the thing altered to-morrow."

THE THEORY OF THE PERPETUAL DISCOMFORT OF HUMANITY

He had been sitting with his feet upon the left jamb of my mantel,
admiring the tips of his shoes in silence for some time.

"George," he said, dropping his cigar-ash thoughtfully into my
inkstand, in order, I imagine, to save my carpet, "have you ever done
pioneer work for Humanity?"

"Never," I said. "How do you get that sort of work?"

"I don't know. I met a man and a woman, though, the other night, who
said they were engaged in that kind of thing. It seems to me to be
exhausting work, and it makes the hair very untidy. They do it chiefly
with their heads. It consists, so I understand, of writing stuff in a
hurry, rushing about in cabs, wearing your hair in some unpleasant
manner, and holding disorderly meetings."

"Who are these people?"

"Never heard of them before, though they told me they were quite well
known. The lady asked me if I had been to Chicago."

I chuckled. I could imagine no more hideous insult to my uncle.

"I told her that I had been to most places south-eastward and eastward,
but never across the Atlantic. She informed me that I ought to have
gone to Chicago, and that America was a great country, and I remarked
that I had always thought it was so great that one could best
appreciate it at a distance. Then she asked me what I thought of the
condition of the lower cl