we meet, and will you reward me for that
outrage on good manners by looking at it,
for one second? Not for my sake and in
my name—ah, no, I dare not ask that!—
but for the sake of Science and in the name
of Todd!"

After this specimen—a very slight one—
of what I can do with a young lady at an
evening party, it would be a mere waste of
time to offer any proofs of my power of
overwhelming elderly people of both sexes
and of all degrees of capacity. I must have
written vainly, indeed, if I have not made
it manifest by this time that I can really
and truly (densely ignorant as I am) carry
out my intention of becoming a great talker,
a most amusing man, and a mine of rare
information, all together and all of a sudden,
on Thursday week.  Confident, however, as
I feel on this point—thanks to my toilsome
gentleman who has provided me with my
Things—I must confess to one little
misgiving, which troubles me at this very
moment, and which I have no objection to
communicate immediately.

Perhaps the intelligent reader thinks he
can guess at my misgiving, without the
slightest assistance from me. Perhaps he
thinks that I am apprehensive, when I am
quite prepared with my whole list of Things
Not Generally Known, of becoming, not only
a great talker, but also a finished and
complete bore. No such fear ever has, or ever
can, enter into my head. I have no objection
whatever to being a bore. My experience
of the world has shown me that, upon
the whole, a bore gets on much better in it,
and is much more respected and permanently
popular, than what is called a clever man.
A few restless people, with an un-English
appetite for perpetual variety, have combined
to set up the bore as a species of bugbear to
frighten themselves, and have rashly imagined
that the large majority of their fellow-
creatures could see clearly enough to look at
the formidable creature with their eyes.
Never did any small minority make any
greater mistake as to the real extent of
influence! English society has a placid enjoyment
in being bored. If any man tells me
that this is a paradox, I, in return, defy him
to account, on any other theory, for three-
fourths of the so-called recreations which are
accepted as at once useful and amusing by
the British nation. Why are people always
ready to give, and to go to parties? Why
do they throng to certain Lectures and to
certain Plays? What takes them to public
meetings, and to the Strangers' Gallery in
the House of Commons? Why are the
debates reported in full in the newspapers?
Why are people on certain social occasions,
always ready to leave off talking together,
for the sake of making speeches and listening
to them? Why is it that the few critics
always discover the dullness of heavy books,
and that the many readers never seem to be
able to find out?  What, in short, to put
the whole question into one sentence, is the
secret of the notoriety and success of half
the public men and half the public and
private entertainments in this country? I
answer, the steady indwelling element of
Boredom: firmly-settled, long- established,
widely-accepted Boredom. Let no young
man, with an eye to getting on in the world,
rashly despise the Bore: he is the only
individual in this country who is sure of his
position and safe with his public.
What is it, then, that I am afraid of?
Plainly and only this:— I am afraid of being
forestalled in the Deep Design on Society,
which I have just been endeavouring to describe.
On the title-page of my inestimable
pocket Manual, I find these formidable words,
"Sixteenth thousand".  Are there sixteen
thousand ignorant people who have bought
this book, with the fell purpose of distinguishing
themselves in society, as I propose to
distinguish myself?  It seems fearfully probable
that there are; and, in that case, it is  more
than likely that we may, some of us, meet
round the same festive board and jostle each
other in a manner dreadful to think of. Can
we not, my sixteen thousand ignorant
brothers and sisters, come to some arrangement?
Shall we have a public meeting and
divide the inestimable pocket Manual among
us fairly?  I must have my subjects for
Thursday week—I must indeed.  If any one
of the sixteen thousand is going out to dinner
on that day, I call upon him publicly to
come forward, as I have publicly come forward
in this paper, for the purpose of stating
plainly what house he is going to, and how
many Things Not Generally Known he
means to use, and which they are. If he
will meet me fairly, I will meet him fairly;
and, what is more, I will even lead up to his
choice bits, and throw my brother in to
prompt.  All I want is that we should be a
united body, and that we should not interfere
with each other.  We have a sure game
before us, if we only shuffle our cards properly.
Let us be organised like other
Societies.  Why should we not take a leaf
out of the Freemasons' book?  I, for one,
don't mind sacrificing my own exclusive
tastes, and walking in procession occasionally,
with an apron round my loins, profusely
decorated with symbols of Things Not Generally
Known—supposing that ceremony to be
essential, in our case (as it apparently is in
that of the Freemasons), to the strict preservation
of a secret.  Let us forthwith have a
mystic sign by which we may communicate
privately, in the broadest glare of the public
eye.  Let us swear each other sixteen thousand
times over to secresy on the subject of the
pocket Manual.  In one last word—for I must
come to an end somewhere, inexhaustibly as
I could run on, if I pleased—let us in the
name of everything that is fraternal and fair
and gentlemanly, combine to enjoy the good-