appeared to be the most silent people at the table.
The acute observer alone could perceive that
it was through the most exquisite skill, by a few
words thrown here and there, that the special
sympathy of each guest was evoked, and the
current of each individual mind set flowing
towards a common centre of interest. The whole
table was alive with conversation, bons mots
breaking out here and there with dazzling effect,
yet all in their due order, not boldly thrust in
without a contest, but, as it were, brilliant
emanations thrown off in the natural course
of the conversation. The perfect concealment of
all artifice and effort was a thing to be wondered at:
in all probability each of those bons mots with its
introduction had cost hours of laboured preparation.

Some people, indeed, because they only
beheld the result, and not the method, affected
to disbelieve in Mr. Jones's greatness. Oftentimes,
in sheer vexation of spirit, I have been tempted,
when I have seen people assembled in
drawing-rooms with their long hungry faces, to
proclaim the greatness of Mr. Jones, and say to
them: "You come here for enjoyment, and you get it,
thanks to Mr. Jones. O hungry man of science!
Mr. Jones has been up half the night working
at chemistry, that he may obtain some new idea,
the germ of which, cast before you, is to unlock
your tongue. O hungry physiologist! Mr. Jones
has been at work for your sake on some new
principles educed from the book of Darwin. O
hungry politician! Mr. Jones has constructed for
you a wonderful canard evolved from plausible
political possibilities. O golden-haired, but yet
hungry heroine of a thousand deux-temps! Mr.
Jones has been mindful of you. Of you too, O
devotee of old china and old masters! And he has
wrought, moreover, your antagonistic ideas into
an harmonious whole, as Meyerbeer deals with
the triple chorus in the Etoile du Nord.

"Papa Jones!" I have exclaimed many a
time, "why not be a great chemist or a great
philologist, or anything else great you like?
The choice rests with yourself; stand before
the world as the Philosopher Jones."

"Que voulez-vous, my son?" — and he would
lay his hand solemnly on his banker's book—
"am I a boy that I should prefer a little kudos
to solid pudding? What emolument should I
make as a philosopher? In this land we stone
the prophets — genius sows, and men of capital
reap. I have made intellect a source of amusement,
and therefore I am a reaper. I have done some
little good in my generation: I have found men
of good breeding and education, hungry and
without employment; I have opened to these
men a nourishing course of dinners, and an
honest way of industry."

I shall fitly close this narrative by describing
the grand triumph of the "system Jones." One
of Mr. Jones's patrons had in a rather depreciatory
manner asserted, "that after all the cook was
the keystone of a dinner."

"I'll carry you through the worst dinner ever
cooked!" replied Mr. Jones, with quiet confidence;
"no one shall be able to say whether the dishes
are good or bad."

I confess, even with my strong faith, I
trembled for the result. The list of the guests
was duly furnished to Mr. Jones. For one
entire week, he saw nobody; for two whole days
he was engaged in instructing his most trusty
conversationalists. He himself attended in the
dining-room dressed as a waiter; for, lest there
should be any failure, he had elaborated three
complete lines of conversation, and with one
wave of his hand, had he found any flagging, a
new line could have been taken up.

The dinner was truly execrable. It was conceived
in the highest principles of French art; the
preparations were conducted, up to within
an hour of dinner, by an eminent chef; and then
the whole was left to "a good plain cook."

The host apologised to his guests—the chef
had been suddenly taken ill. Apology was
needless, the triumph was with Jones: no one
could find a moment for gastronomic criticism,
so entirely absorbing was the conversation.
When the gentlemen left the table, Mr. Jones
fainted in the arms of a tall footman, his
intellectual excitement had been so intense. I
saw him soon after his return from this dinner.
He was seated in his easy-chair; a glass of
eau sucrée stood before him; he was moulding
a flake of his favourite "caporal" into a cigarette.
He appeared perfectly calm, but the flush
of strong mental effort was visible in his
countenance."Intellect," said he, with a
placid smile, "has triumphed. After this
dinner, my son, I shall die happy."

A ROMAN BURGHER.

IT is a sad pity that Menenius left no heirs
male of his body, or even heirs general. I doubt
very much if there be a Menenius left within the
length and breadth of this city of Rome.

Shall we go and look for him up at that fan
of streets which branches off from bright
Spanish Place, where is the English settlement,
and where our Brother Briton lounges it in
his Angola checks and stripes and familiar
shapes of hat, and flutters in and out of the
dazzling bazaars opened here for his special
behoof; where, too, he lights his modestly
priced cigar, whose cost fluctuates between
economy and luxury—two farthings for the fair
average run, two farthings and a half for zigari
schelti, or the choicer and selected stimulants.

Here, sitting in his bazaar, and battening on
Signor Giovanni Torro from England,
surrounded with glittering wares, with jewellery,
mosaic tables, photographs of public places,
gaudy scarfs, and succulent confectionary— for
these are the staples for which our traveller will
barter with the natives—we shall find Signor
Menenio, burgher, bourgeois, plain shopman in
fact. He is an unit of the middle order; being a
little contemptuously included in a class
composed of all that is not sacerdotal, aristocratic,
official, or eleemosynary. I find him, like many
other burghers of many other cities, fair, rotund,
and lined, if not with good capon, at least with
those richer dainties with which his city abounds,