brought to a full stop, on any single occasion,
by any one of the hundreds of enchanted
listeners before whom he figured in his
wonderful performances with the tongue from
morning to night.

And yet, there must surely have been Talk-
Stoppers in the world, in the time of the
brilliant Endless—talk-stoppers, in all probability,
possessing characteristics similar to those
now displayed in society by my exasperating
connection by marriage, Mr. Spoke Wheeler.
It is impossible to say what the consequences
might have been if my relative and Mr.
Endless had ever come together. Mr. Spoke
Wheeler is one of those men—a large class,
as it appears to me—who will talk, and who
have nothing whatever in the way of a subject
of their own to talk about. His constant
practice is to lie silently in ambush for subjects
started by other people, to take them forthwith
from their rightful owners, turn them coolly
to his own uses, and then cunningly wait
again for the next topic, belonging to somebody
else, that passes within his reach. It is
useless to give up, and leave him to take the
lead—he invariably gives up, too, and declines
the honour. It is useless to start once more,
hopefully, seeing him apparently silenced—
he becomes talkative again the moment you
offer him the chance of seizing on your new
subject—disposes of it without the slightest
fancy, taste, or novelty of handling, in a
moment—then relapses into utter speechlessness
as soon as he has silenced the rest of the
company by taking their topic away from
them. Wherever he goes, he commits this
social atrocity with the most perfect
innocence and the most provoking good humour,
for he firmly believes in himself as one of the
most entertaining men who ever crossed a
drawing-room or caroused at a dinner-table.

Imagine Mr. Spoke Wheeler getting an
invitation to one of those brilliant suppers
which assisted in making the evenings of the
sparkling Endless so attractive to his friends
and admirers. See him sitting modestly at
the table with every appearance in his face
and manner of being the most persistent and
reliable of listeners. Endless takes the
measure of his man, as he too confidently
believes, in one bright glance—thinks to
himself, Here is a new worshipper to astonish;
here is the conveniently dense and taciturn
human pedestal on which I can stand to let
off my fireworks—plunges his knife and fork,
gaily hospitable, into the dish before him
(let us say a turkey and truffles, for Endless
is a gastronome as well as a wit), and starts
off with one of those "fertile allusions," for
which he was so famous.

"I never carve turkey without thinking of
what Madame de Pompadour said to Louis
the Fifteenth," Endless begins in his most
off–hand manner. "I refer to the time when
the superb Frenchwoman first came to court,
and the star of the fair Chateauroux waned
before her. Who remembers what the Pompadour
said when the king insisted on carving
the turkey?"

Before the company can beg Endless, as
usual, to remember for them, Mr. Spoke
Wheeler starts into life and seizes the
subject.

"What a vicious state of society it was in
the time of Madame de Pompadour," he says,
with moral severity. "Who can wonder that
it led to the French Revolution?"

Endless feels that his first effort for the
evening is nipped in the bud, and that the
new guest is not to be depended on as a
listener. He, however, waits politely, and
every one else waits politely to hear
something more about the French Revolution.
Mr. Spoke Wheeler has not another word to
say. He has snatched his subject—has
exhausted it—and is now waiting, with an
expectant smile on his face, to lay hands on
another. Disastrous silence reigns, until Mr.
Endless, as host and wit, launches a new
topic in despair.

"Don't forget the salad, gentlemen,"' he
exclaims. "The emblem, as I always fancy,
of human life. The sharp vinegar corrected
by the soft oil, just as the misfortune of one
day is compensated by the luck of another.
Heigho! let moralists lecture as they will,
what a true gambler's existence ours is, by
the very nature of it! Love, fame, wealth,
are the stakes we all play for; the world is
the table; Death keeps the house, and
Destiny shuffles the cards. According to
my definition, gentlemen, man is a gambling
animal, and woman——" Endless pauses
for a moment, and lifts the glass to his lips to
give himself a bacchanalian air before he
amazes the company with a torrent of
eloquence on the subject of woman. Unhappy
man! in that one moment Mr. Spoke Wheeler
seizes on his host's brilliant gambling
metaphor, and runs away with it as his own
subject immediately.

"The worst of gambling," he says, with a
look of ominous wisdom, "is, that when once
a man takes to it, he can never be got to give
it up again. It always ends in ruin. I know
a man whose son is in the Fleet, and whose
daughter is a maid-of-all–work at a lodging-
house. The poor devil himself once had
twenty thousand pounds, and he now picks
up a living by writing begging-letters. All
through gambling. Degrading vice, certainly,
ruins a man's temper and health, too, as well
as his property. Ah! a very degrading
vice—very much so indeed!"

"I am afraid, my dear sir, you have no
vices," says Endless, getting angry and
sarcastic as a fresh pause follows this undeniable
commonplace. "The bottle stands with you.
Do you abjure even that most amiable of
human failings—the cheerful glass? Ha!"
exclaims Endless, seeing that his guest is
going to speak again, and vainly imagining
that he can cut him short this time. "Ha!
what a debt we owe to the first man who