Thus you may see me forlorn, with each of my neighbours turning towards me the shoulder of indignation.  I do not blame them, but how can I help it?  It is the Fairy’s fault:  the curse has come upon me.  WILLIAM BUFFY, the Statesman, has a great clan of kinsfolk.  Did I ever express my views about WILLIAM BUFFY, but one of Clan Buffy was there, to be annoyed?  When I find out what has occurred, I become as red as any tomato, but that does nobody any good.

Oh, I am a Pariah, I am unfit to live!  In a savage country, to which my thoughts often wander, I would stumble over every taboo, and soon find myself in the oven.  As it is, I stumble over everything, stools and lady’s trains, and upset porcelain, and break all the odds and ends with which I fidget, and spill the salt, and then pour claret over it, and call on the right people at the wrong houses, and put letters in the wrong envelopes:  one of the most terrible blunders of the Social Duffer.  Naturally, in place of improving, MACDUFFER gets worse and worse:  every failure which he discovers makes him more nervous:  besides he knows that, of all his errors, he only finds out a small per-centage.  Where can he take refuge?  If Robinson Crusoe had been a social Duffer, he and Friday would not have been on speaking terms in a week.  People think the poor Duffer malignant, boorish, haughty, unkind; he is only a Duffer, an irreclaimable, sad, pitiful creature, quite beyond the reach of philanthropy.  On my grave write, not MISERRIMUS (though that would be true enough), but FUTILISSIMUS.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  OUR SPECIAL ARTIST ON TOUR.

Effect of Sketching in the Train. (The Ladies were drawn at the Stations.)]

* * * * *

A GLADSTONIAN MENU.

The following menu of a banquet, said to have been given at Biarritz not long ago, has been forwarded to us:—­

POTAGES.

Faux Col.  Maree Coulante.  Bonne Femme.

POISSONS.

Harpe Irlandaise, Sauce Verte.  Anguilles Glissantes.

ENTREES.

Petits Cultivateurs en Caisses.  Tete de Joseph frite, Sauce Jesse. 
Conservateurs Foudroyes en brochette.

ROTS.

Vieille Main Parlementaire a la Renard.  Parti de Parnell a la
Conscience Nonconformiste.

LEGUMES.

Discours en Branches.  Pommes Maitre du Ministere.  Choux d’Homere.

ENTREMETS.

Sucrerie d’Office.  Conseils de Paroisse a la Cirque d’Ete.  Mots de
Labouchere.

DESSERT.

Plans Varies.  Elections Assorties.

The waiting was done by Candidates, and during the evening the band played a selection, containing such well-known pieces as “Souvenir de Mitchelstown,” the opening chorus of “Mose in Egitto,” “Ou sont nos Ducs,” “Partant pour le Sud,” and “Irland, Irland ueber alles.”