pear at such
functions with a missing button. But the Mariner was too engrossed in
his own tale to notice this lack of interest; and so invariably is the
Bore Positive: everything escapes him except his listener.

But no matter how well we know when we are bored, none of us can be
certain that he does not sometimes bore--not even Tammas. The one
certainty is that _I may bore_, and that on the very occasion when I
have felt myself as entertaining as a three-ring circus, I may in effect
have been as gay and chatty as a like number of tombstones. There are
persons, for that matter, who are bored by circuses and delighted by
tombstones. My mistake may have been to put all my conversational eggs
in one basket--which, indeed, is a very good way to bore people.

Dynamo Doit, teaching his class of industrious correspondents, would
probably write them, with a picture of himself shaking his fist to
emphasize his point: 'Do not try to exhaust your subject. You will only
exhaust your audience. Never talk for more than three minutes on any
topic. Wear a wrist-watch _and keep your eye on it_. If at the end of
_three minutes_ you cannot change the subject, tell one of the following
anecdotes.' And I am quite sure also that Professor Doit would write to
his class: 'Whatever topic you discuss, _discuss it originally_. Be apt.
Be bright. Be pertinent. Be _yourself_. Remember always that it is not
so much what you say as the _way you say it_ that will charm your
listener. Think clearly. Illustrate and drive home your meaning with
illuminating figures--the sort of thing that your hearer will remember
and pass on to others as "another of So-and-so's _bon-mots_." Here you
will find that reading the "Wit and Humor" column in newspapers and
magazines is a great help. And speak plainly. Remember that unless you
are _heard_ you cannot expect to _interest_. On this point, dear
student, I can do no better than repeat Lord Chesterfield's advice to
his son: "Read what Cicero and Quintilian say of enunciation."'

But perhaps, after all, enunciation is no more important than
renunciation; and the first virtue that we who do not wish to be bores
must practise is abstemiousness of self. I know it is hard, but I do not
mean total abstinence. A man who tried to converse without his _I's_
would make but a blind stagger at it. This short and handsome word (as
Colonel Roosevelt might have said) is not to be utterly discarded
without danger of such a silenc