what a dreary time is that which intervenes between the arrival of a guest and the dinner hour, in the dead winter months in the country.  The English are a desperate people for overweighting their conversational powers.  They have no idea of penning up their small talk, and bringing it to bear in generous flow upon one particular hour; but they keep dribbling it out throughout the live-long day, wearying their listeners without benefiting themselves—­just as a careless waggoner scatters his load on the road.  Few people are insensible to the advantage of having their champagne brisk, which can only be done by keeping the cork in; but few ever think of keeping the cork of their own conversation in.  See a Frenchman—­how light and buoyant he trips into a drawing-room, fresh from the satisfactory scrutiny of the looking-glass, with all the news, and jokes, and tittle-tattle of the day, in full bloom!  How sparkling and radiant he is, with something smart and pleasant to say to every one!  How thoroughly happy and easy he is; and what a contrast to phlegmatic John Bull, who stands with his great red fists doubled, looking as if he thought whoever spoke to him would be wanting him to endorse a bill of exchange!  But, as we said before, the dread hour before dinner is an awful time in the country—­frightful when there are two hours, and never a subject in common for the company to work upon.  Laverick Wells and their mutual acquaintance was all Sponge and Jawleyford’s stock-in-trade; and that was a very small capital to begin upon, for they had been there together too short a time to make much of a purse of conversation.  Even the young ladies, with their inquiries after the respective flirtations—­how Miss Sawney and Captain Snubnose were ‘getting on’? and whether the rich Widow Spankley was likely to bring Sir Thomas Greedey to book?—­failed to make up a conversation; for Sponge knew little of the ins and outs of these matters, his attention having been more directed to Mr. Waffles than any one else.  Still, the mere questions, put in a playful, womanly way, helped the time on, and prevented things coming to that frightful deadlock of silence, that causes an involuntary inward exclamation of ’How am I to get through the time with this man?’ There are people who seem to think that sitting and looking at each other constitutes society.  Women have a great advantage over men in the talking way; they have always something to say.  Let a lot of women be huddled together throughout the whole of a livelong day, and they will yet have such a balance of conversation at night, as to render it necessary to convert a bedroom into a clearing-house, to get rid of it.  Men, however, soon get high and dry, especially before dinner; and a host ought to be at liberty to read the Riot Act, and disperse them to their bedrooms, till such times as they wanted to eat and drink.

A most scientifically sounded gong, beginning low, like distant thunder, and gradually increasing its murmur till it filled the whole mansion with its roar, at length relieved all parties from the labour of further efforts; and, looking at his watch, Jawleyford asked Mrs. Jawleyford, in an innocent, indifferent sort of way, which was Mr. Sponge’s room; though he had been fussing about it not long before, and dusting the portrait of himself in his green-and-gold yeomanry uniform, with an old pocket-handkerchief.