give you an instance. The other day, down at
Slaughterfield, we'd all been shooting, you know,
for some days, and we were all deucedly tired,
and the dogs rather knocked up, you know; so
we thought we'd have a rest, and to fill up the
time, you know, we got up a pigeon-match. We
all shot with breech-loaders, except one fellow,
Stickleback—- you know Stickleback—- fellow
who's all for the old style of thing in everything.
Well, Stickleback shot with a muzzle-loader, and
I must acknowledge that he killed his birds
cleaner than we did. Whilst our birds were
walking about the field, hit, you know, and that
sort of thing, but not dead (some of them dying
a minute or two afterwards, and so on), Stickle-
back's birds would drop like stones, and never
move again. We were all a good deal struck at
the time by it, and it was impossible not to
attribute the thing, in some degree, to the
different way of loading."

Therefore I say, that unless you wish very
often to have to sit and drink your wine in
silence, shut out from sympathy, and
association with your fellow-men, it does behove
you to get up some sort of knowledge of the
sports of the field, and to know accurately a grilse
from a salmon, and a grouse from a wood-
pigeon. I dare say there are other things talked
about besides those alluded to in the specimen
dialogue given above; I dare say there are
scientific sets where science is talked of, and art
circles where art is discussed, and medical coteries
in which physic predominates, and clerical
meetings where the progress of school-children and
the respective merits of pews and open-sittings
come upon the carpet. But what I maintain is,
that all these are exceptional cases, and that the
surest passport into a general society of men
which you can show, is a game certificate; and
that to be quite at home in the drawing-room, it
is above all things necessary that you should be
at home in the kennel and stables.

And this small chronicle of small conversations,
how incomplete it will seem without some
mention of the kind of talk which goes on among the
ladies of the creation while their lords are
occupied with the wild and domesticated
animals who live under their protection!
Unhappily, I am not in a position to Chronicle
Small-Beer of this tap, as accurately as I could
wish. Undoubtedly it is my privilege occasionally
to engage in conversation with members of
the fairer part of creation, and so it may be
said that I ought to be able to put their talk on
record. I am of a different opinion. It is not
what these gentle creatures say to us men that
we want to know, but what they say to eacli
other. I have shown what men talk about when
the ladies' backs are turned; but how can I find
out what ladies say when they leave their masters
over the bottle. I have tried to find this out in
every sort of way, but have never yet been able to
get hold of one of that masonic sisterhood who is
disposed to turn Queen's evidence upon the rest.
Now, from this I find myself irresistibly impelled
towards one of two conclusions-— the dilemma
being exactly of the Freemasonic kind-— either
the secret of these evening meetings is of a very
terrible kind, or else there is no secret at all.

Perhaps they talk of mankind. Perhaps they
are perpetually occupied in discoursing with
wonder and admiration of our virtues, our long-
suffering, our cleverness, our largeness of grasp,
our indifference to the gratifications of the table,
our wondrous readiness to part with our money,
our amiability under misfortunes connected with
the laundry department. Perhaps they plot little
pleasant surprises for us—- small, or, better still,
great economies, domestic treats. Perhaps they
examine each other as to how far the mind of
each is " subdued to the very quality of her lord."

Of the conversation of the ladies of that older
period mentioned in the beginning of this
Chronicle, we have some knowledge from contemporaneous
records, but even that is almost exclusively
mixed conversation; talk between some witty
lady and some satirical gentleman; a keen
encounter of wits, but not what we are in search
of. No one tells us what the talk of these same
witty ladies was, when they got together.

There's no getting at it. Past or present that
Privy Council of the drawing-room remains a
mystery. I have, in fulfilment of my Small-Beer
functions, and in the harmless endeavour to
supply the public thirst for such tipple, gone the
length of rigidly cross-examining one witness
whom I had a right so to pump; but I could
get at nothing. Did they talk about servants?
No. About children? No, scarcely ever. About
dress? Oh dear no. One lady might say to
another what a beautiful colour that Chinese
shawl of yours is, or something of that sort,
but nothing more. So here were all one's
superstitions knocked on the head at once. If ever I
build a house of my own, I will have an oeuil de
boeuf cunningly let into the wall of the drawing-
room, somewhere near the chimney-piece, and
solve this mystery. I have tried listening
already. A Small-Beer Chronicler must listen
and do all sorts of mean things, and once, when
some friends of mine were dining with me, and
the ladies having retired some time, I went to
the cellar for some more of my celebrated '34
claret, I paused as I passed the drawing-room
door, and I distinctly heard the words
"crinoline," "small flounces," "ruche," and
"trimming." The connecting links between these
remarkable expressions I could not catch; but
this is quite enough to convince me that one
part of the evidence of the witness whom I cross-
examined is not to be received.

I have once or twice listened in another
manner, which I strongly recommend to future
Small-Beer Chroniclers. I have drawn near to a
group of ladies in a drawing-room, and, singling
out an elderly and garrulous member of that
coterie, have led her on to tell me a long story,
or to engage in some protracted statement which
required only monosyllabic answers. Then, as I
balanced my teaspoon on the edge of my cup,