I, too, must draw attention to the fact that the
duration of formal ceremonious visits, is far too protracted and long
drawn out.

_Crede experto._ A certain young English gentleman, dwelling in the
Temple, whose acquaintance I have formed, earnestly requested that I
should do him the honour of a visit; and recently, wishing to be hail
fellow well met, I presented myself before him about 9.30 A.M.

He greeted me with effusion, shaking me warmly by the hand, and begging
me to be seated, and making many inquiries, whether I preferred India
to England, and what progress I was making in my studies, &c., and so
forth, all of which I answered faithfully, to the best of my abilities.

After that he addressed me by fits and starts and _longo intervallo_,
yet displaying so manifest and absorbent a delight in my society that he
could not bring himself to terminate the audience, while I was to
conceal my immense wearisomeness and the ardent desire I had conceived
to leave him.

And thus he detained me there hour after hour, until five minutes past
one P.M., when he recollected, with many professions of chagrin, that he
had an appointment to take his tiffin, and dismissed me, inviting me
cordially to come again.

If, however, it is expected of me that I can devote three hours and a
half to ceremonial civilities, I must respectfully answer with a _Nolo
episcopari_, for my time is more precious than rubies, and so I will beg
not only Mr MELLADEW, Esq., Barrister-at-law, but all other Anglo-Saxon
friends and their families, to accept this as a _verbum sap._ and wink
to a blind horse.

II

_Some account of Mr Jabberjee's experiences at the
Westminster Play._

Being forearmed by editorial beneficence with ticket of admission to
theatrical entertainment by adolescent students at Westminster College,
I presented myself at the scene of acting in a state of liveliest and
frolicsome anticipation on a certain Wednesday evening in the month of
December last, about 7.20 P.M.

At the summit of the stairs I was received by a posse of polite and
stalwart striplings in white kids, who, after abstracting large circular
orifice from my credentials, ordered me to ascend to a lofty gallery,
where, on arriving, I found every chair pre-occupied, and moreover was
restricted to a prospect of the backs of numerous juvenile heads, while
expected to remain the livelong evening on the tiptoe of expectation and
Shank's mare!

This for