least afraid of this mass of intelligence. It
may be formidable enough on its own
customary ground of Things Generally Known;
but I shall turn it topsy-turvy, in no time,
with Things Not Generally Known. I shall
take to this festival my inestimable pocket
Manual, my modest assurance, my excellent
memory, and my brother. On Thursday
week, there will be the most remarkable
dinner-party in all England. The Indian
Mutiny, the Panic, the Leviathan, the new
Parliament, the very weather itself, everything,
in short, which is generally known,
will be blown away from every mouth the
instant I open my lips, and sow my Things
Not Generally Known, broad-cast, among the
company and the dishes, from the first
course to the dessert.

For instance, let us say the cover is off the
fish—cod's head and shoulders, I know by
anticipation. My brother (previously instructed,
and a very trustworthy person in
small matters) whispers to me, "Page thirteen,
Jack; the Age of the Globe." My host
(an old-fashioned man, who asks everybody
what they will have, instead of leaving it to
the servants) says, "Fish, my dear fellow?"
I shudder, and turn from him with horror.
"Good Heavens, Simpson! do you take me
for a cannibal?" Simpson stares; the company
stare; everybody is puzzled but my
useful brother, who is behind the scenes.
The opportunity is mine-- and I let off my
first Thing Not Generally Known, with a
loud report, thus:—

"Fish!" I exclaim. "You eat fish, after
the discovery of the great Demaillet, whose
thoughts on the age of the globe are in the
hands of every schoolboy? Is it possible that
nobody here remembers the passage in which
it is stated distinctly that man was originally
a fish? Nay more, my dear madam, there
are still fish to be met with in the ocean,
which are half-men, on their progress to the
perfect human shape, and whose descendants
will, in process of time—you understand me,
in process of time?—become men. Ah, you
smile, sir," I proceed, stopping a man at the
lower end of the table, who is asking, under
his breath, for news from India, and letting
off my second Thing at the same time. "You
smile? Well, well, I am not bigoted about
Demaillet's theory. I grant you there may
be something in Woodward's idea that the
deluge was occasioned by a momentary
suspension of cohesion among the particles of
mineral bodies—nor am I prepared to deny
(as who is?) that Oken—may I trouble you
for the salt?—that Oken has perhaps solved
the great deluge problem in those five immortal
words, 'All is done by Polarisation.'
Short, you will say, doctor—but how full of
meaning; how very full of meaning!"

I offer this as a specimen of the neat manner
in which a Thing, so generally known as
a Cod's Head, may be made, as it were,
to fire a mine of recondite information in
the midst of an astonished company, thanks
to my pocket Manual and to the industrious
person who has put it together. But, if need
be, I can do without dishes, and can use the
people who eat from them to serve my purpose
instead. I take it that a nervous old
lady, neatly dressed in stiff black silk, who
was a great beauty in some past century, and
who is now a wonderful woman for her age,
is a Thing generally known at family dinner-
parties. Nothing is more graceful and becoming
in a young and dashing gentleman
than a little delicate conversational attention,
on his part, offered to venerable age in the
presence of a mixed company; and nothing
is more difficult than to hit on an appropriate
topic where a man's mind is unprovided
with a proper store of Things Not Generally
Known. In my case, no such obstacle as
this can possibly exist. I can stick a fact
with which nobody is familiar into the head
of the typical old woman, with whom everybody
is familiar, and can set it a-light for the
public benefit at a moment's notice. Say, we
are just assembling round the dinner-table.
The venerable lady is slow in getting to her
chair, and nervous about sitting down in it.
Her daughter says, "Dear mama, don't
hurry." I instantly groan, shake my head,
and fix my eyes on Mrs. Methuselah. My
brother (perfectly invaluable where nothing
but mere watchfulness is wanted) whispers,
"Page fifteen, Jack—the three motions of the
earth!"—and off I go with another Thing,
like a race-horse from the starting-post.

"Did I hear your daughter, ma'am, beg
you not to hurry?" I begin with a faint
smile. "Excuse me, but of all the vain,
requests she could possibly have addressed to
you, this is the most utterly futile. You are
hurrying at this very moment, ma'am, at the
rate of a hundred and fifty millions of miles
a-year towards a particular point in the
heavens, a star in the constellation Hercules.
We—or, if you like, our Earth, which comes
to the same thing—have three Motions. Two,
generally known, round our own axis and
round the sun. A third, not at all generally
known, and recently discovered by great
astronomers, with which I have just had the
pleasure of making you acquainted. Don't
be alarmed, ma'am, the sun and all the
planets are rushing in our direction, and at
our rate, and it is my private opinion that
when we do come into collision with that
star in the constellation Hercules, we shall
probably smash it, and go on again smoothly
as if nothing had happened."

Shall we get back again to the dishes, just
to show how easily I can garnish any of them
with Things Not Generally Known, as I
garnished the Cod's Head? The dinner is
nearly over. The cheese has appeared; and
the salad is being handed round. "Page
twenty-six," my brother whispers, as the
servant approaches me with the verdant bowl.

"Salad, sir?"