So here is another instance of the failure of
amateur touting. It is by no means the last
that might be quoted. What do you do when
your friend complains of his corns, and of the
wonderful ideas entertained by shoemakers as
to the form and size of the human foot?  You
instantly begin to chuckle, "Aha, my boy, you
should go to my bootmaker, you'd never be
troubled with corns any more.  Go to my man,
and be at peace."  What follows? Your friend
comes limping up to you a week or two afterwards,
and informs you that, according to the
verdict of an eminent chiropodist, he is likely
to be lame for six months in consequence of an
attempt to wear the shoes supplied by your shoemaker.
And your shoemaker thanks you with
the air of a martyr for having sent him a customer,
but regrets that the gentleman has not
behaved very handsome, sending back the shoes
and declining to pay for them. "A pair of shoes,
too," remarks the injured tradesman, exhibiting
the articles in question, which resemble canoes,
"a pair of shoes as ain't everybody's money,
being made according to the gentleman's own
design, with no shape in them."

But there is another form of amateur touting
which must have a passing word of notice before
the subject is dismissed.  This time, it is your
private friends whom you boast about, and you
seek to cram them—as you did professional
men and tradesmen—down the throats of your
acquaintance.  It is dangerous work.

Did you ever try to bring two people acquainted
—being rather proud of each of them—
and attain a successful result?  Particular attention
is requested to the wording of this
question. It is not asked whether you succeeded
in bringing those two persons to know
each other, though that is often a performance
with difficulties beset, but whether the result of
the introductory ceremony was ever satisfactory.

I have said that you are rather proud of each
of these friends separately.  You think highly
of them morally, intellectually, socially.  You
have spoken of each to the other as a fine fellow,
one of the cleverest men you know, a man you
have a sincere regard for.  You have said that
they will just suit each other, that they were
made to be acquainted. In speaking of Arker
to Booms, you have said that Arker is one of
the most amusing fellows you ever knew, that
there is a fund of dry humour about the man,
that he is excellent company, a capital fellow to
get at your table, a great talker, and never at a
loss.  In like manner, when you describe Booms
to Arker, you are equally eloquent about the
good qualities of Booms, which, however, are of
a different sort.  You say that Booms is a man
of solid information, a deeply read fellow, a
walking encyclopaedia, "and yet," you add,
"no man has a keener appreciation of a good
thing than Booms, and then, my dear Arker, you
and he do really think so very much alike on so
many subjects, that I am continually reminded
of each of you when I am with the other."

Now what have you done?  In one word, you
have simply set these two excellent individuals
one against the other more completely than if
you had abused Arker to Booms in the most
ferocious manner, and set Booms before Arker
as a monster in human form.  I don't know how
it is; I don't attempt to explain the phenomenon,
but it is an unquestionable fact that we don't like
to hear people whom we don't know, made a fuss
about, and that we very soon weary of hearing
Aristides—when he is not numbered among our
acquaintances—called the just.

And now let us suppose that you do at last
succeed in bringing about a meeting between
Arker and Booms.  It is only after innumerable
false starts that you do succeed in this.  Many
times have you got together the very people
whom you wanted to assist at the great
introduction scene, but then unhappily either Arker
or Booms would not come, and still this meeting
which you have sought with feverish anxiety, to
bring about, has not come off.  At last, however,
we will suppose you successful. Arker and
Booms are both disengaged and will come.  But,
now your difficulties with regard to the other
guests begin. The people who are wanted to fit
in with Arker and Booms, the mutual friends,
where are they? They are wanting.  Some are
ill; others out of town; and others engaged;
and you are obliged to get all sorts of waifs
and strays together and "make up a party," the
members of which are all strangers to each
other, and, above all, to your two principal guests.
Also, on the day of your dinner-party, the wind
is in the east.  Arker has been engaged in a
troublesome affair in the City, which is likely to
involve him in loss, and Booms has the toothache.
Your difficulties begin, before you leave
the drawing-room.  Arker has got it into his
head that he is to take your wife down to dinner,
and, after offering his arm, has to be disabused
of his opinion, and to yield the palm to Booms,
for whom the honour of conducting the lady of
the house has been reserved.

And now, once seated at table, you hope that
matters will begin to prosper a little.  There is
one subject on which you remember—and it is
the only one—that your two illustrious friends
hold strong opinions of a diametrically opposite
nature.  That subject is instantly started by
Chipper: a little stop-gap whom you invited to
fill a vacant seat.  The subject is started, and
out comes Booms with sentiments of the most
uproarious kind, couched in the most
uncompromising terms. You are in agonies—you listen
with a feeble watchful smile—you don't hear
what your next neighbour is saying to you, for
you know that Arker cannot keep silence on this
particular question of church-rates, and—to do
him justice—he doesn't.  After this, all goes
wrong.  Booms, your man of information, your
walking encyclopaedia, is at fault on the Schleswig-
Holstein business, and Arker, your amusing
man, your dry humorist, "so invaluable at a
dinner-table," has a silent fit upon him, and, after
contradicting Booms flatly about the church-
rates, collapses altogether, and won't open his
lips.  When the party is over, your wife informs
you that Mrs. Arker and Mrs. Booms were not