roud. Proud! I ask, what has a Duffer to be proud
of? Nobody, or very few, admit that I am just a Duffer; a stupid,
short-sighted, absent-minded child of misfortune.

All these things do not make my life so pleasant to me that I, the
MACDUFFER, should greatly care to dine out. Ah, that _is_ a trial.
First, I never know my host and hostess by sight. Next, in a summer
dusk, I never know anybody. Then, as to conversation, I have none.
My mind is always prowling about on some antiquarian hobby-horse,
reflecting deeply on the Gowrie Conspiracy, or the Raid of Ruthven, or
the chances in favour of PERKIN WARBECK's having been a true man. Now
I do object to talking shop, I am not a lawyer, nor yet am I an actor;
I do not like people who talk about their cases, or their parts.
It would he unbecoming to start a conversation on the authenticity
of "HENRY GORING's _Letter_." Then I never go to the play, I do
not even know which of the Royal Family is which: modern pictures
are the abominations of desolation to me; in fact, I have no
"conversation-openings." A young lady, compelled to sit beside me,
has been known to hum tunes, and telegraph messages of her forlorn
condition to her sister, at the opposite end of the table. I pitied
her, but was helpless. My impression is that she was musical, poor
soul! When I do talk, things become actively intolerable. I have
no tact. To have tact, is much like being good at Halma, or whist,
or tennis, or chess. You must be able to calculate the remote
consequences of every move, and all the angles and side-walls from
which the conversational hall may bound. It is needless to say that,
at whist, I never know in the least what will happen in consequence of
the card I play; and life is very much too short for the interminable
calculations of chess. It is the same in conversation. I never know,
or, if my sub-consciousness knows, I never remember, who anybody
is. I speak to people about scandals with which they are connected.
I frankly give my mind about Mr. DULL's poems to Mr. DULL's
sister-in-law. I give free play to my humour about the Royal Academy
in talk with the wife of an Academician of whom I never heard. I am
like _Jeanie Deans_, at her interview with Queen CAROLINE, when, as
the MACALLUM MORE said, she first brought down the Queen, and then
Lady SUFFOLK, right and left, with remarks about unkind mothers, and
the Stool of Penitence.

Thus you may see me forlorn, with each of my neighbours