rth on travels in foreign
climes, and in order to lighten in some measure the vicissitudes
inseparable from peripatetic wandering, he was provided with a letter of
introduction to a certain British consul. The writer of this letter
enclosed it in one to my friend, in which he said that he would find the
consul a most arrant snob, and a bumptious, arrogant humbug as well--in
fact, a cad to the backbone; but that he (my friend) was not to mind
this, for, as he could claim acquaintanceship with several dukes and
duchesses, all he had to do was to trot out their names for the
edification of the consul, who would then render him every attention,
and thus compensate him to some extent for having to come into contact
with such an insufferable vulgarian. On the return of the guileless
satirist to England the writer of the letter of introduction inquired
how he had fared with the consul, and great was his surprise to hear him
drawl out, in his habitual lethargic manner:

"Well, my dear fellow, he did not receive me very warmly, and he did not
ask me to dinner. In fact, he struck me as being rather cool."

"Well, you do surprise me!" rejoined his friend. "He's a horrible cad,
as I told you in my letter, but he's awfully hospitable, and I really
can't understand what you tell me. You gave him my letter of
introduction?"

"Well, I thought so," said my friend; "but, do you know, on my journey
home I discovered it in my pocket-book, so I must have handed him
instead your note to me about him!"

Of course, in the remarks which I have been making I have not been
alluding to letters of merely social introduction, which are of an
entirely different nature. Such letters are generally handed to the
individual to whom they are addressed at more propitious moments, when
he is not either hard at work, as the case may be, in his editorial
chair, or overburdened with anxiety as to the fluctuations of the Bank
rate.

Be that as it may, I cannot refrain from citing here the case of another
brother artist, who was particular in the extreme as regarded the
neatness of his apparel and his personal appearance in general; in fact,
he laboured, rightly or wrongly, under the impression that the manner in
which a letter of introduction is received and acted upon by the person
to whom it is addressed depends upon the raiment and _tout ensemble_ of
the bearer.

Well, it so happened that he once had a letter of introduction to a man
he particularly