[Stops, and lights a cigarette.

G. Oh, beautiful, beautiful!  Now indeed I recognise my ERBERT’s voice; and that is—­yes, it must be—­the scent of the cigarettes you lately imported.  Grant me one, only one. (Takes one and lights it.) But what were you talking about?

E. (pinches his cheek).  There you are horrid again.  But you smile. Je te connais, mon brave. [Greek:  Gignosko se pai] (never mind the accents). Ich kenne dich, mein alter. Cognosco te, amice. I know you, old fellow.  You are only chaffing.  As if you had not discovered that which all truly great indolence has taught ever since the first star looked out and beheld chaotic vastness on every hand.  For to say something is what every puny whipster can do.  To talk much, and in many languages, and yet to have said nothing, that, my dear GILLIE, is what all have striven for, but only one, gifted above his fellows with magic power of weaving the gossamer thread of words, has truly attained.  For it is in that reconcilement of apparent opposites, and in the cadenced measures of a musical voice, that the dignified traditions of an aesthetic purity, repellent to the thin, colourless lips of impotence, reside and make their home.  But—­ [Breaks off, and lights a cigarette.

G. (lighting a cigarette).  Is that really so?

E. Yea, even as LUCIAN—­ [Short notes, to be afterwards filled out:—­Throw in Hector, the Myrmidons, COLERIDGE, RUSKIN, OHNET, LEWIS MORRIS, ARISTOTLE, LIONARDO, St. Anne, Juno, Mr. HOWELLS, LONGINUS, FRONTO, LESSING, Narcissus.  Stir up with SHAKSPEARE and MILTON.  Add CICERO and BALZAC]

G. ERBERT, ERBERT, how learned you are, and how lovely!  But I am weary, and must away.

    [He moves off.  ERBERT attempts to detain him.  In the end they
    quarrel.  ERBEBT breaks the banjo over GILNEST’S head.

E. You are a horrid pig, and I don’t like you at all!

    (Not to be continued.)

* * * * *

JAMES’S HAIR APPARENT.—­Everyone recognises ex-President JAMES, author of the Whistlerian book on The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, by his distinguished white lock just over his forehead.  No one dare call this “a white feather,” as he has never shown it.  Some people looked upon it as caused by JAMES’S powder.  This is not so.  It may be correctly described as an illustration of “Locke on the Understanding.”

* * * * *

ELECTROPHONOSCOPIC CHAT.

(A LITTLE OF IT, PICKED UP AT THE OFFICE. A.D. 1900.)

There must surely be some mistake.  Here, what’s this?  This old toothless hag, without her wig, is unknown to me!  And why does she address me as “ARCHIBALD”?  I was expecting to see my beloved ARAMINTA.

Excuse me, but I think we have been wrongly switched on.  From your description you seem to be having the interview I was expecting with my dear good Grandmother.  While this charming young Lady—­But perhaps you would like to see for yourself?