Thus you may see me forlorn, with each of my neighbours turning towards me the shoulder of indignation. I do not blame them, but how can I help it? It is the Fairy's fault: the curse has come upon me. WILLIAM BUFFY, the Statesman, has a great clan of kinsfolk. Did I ever express my views about WILLIAM BUFFY, but one of Clan Buffy was there, to be annoyed? When I find out what has occurred, I become as red as any tomato, but that does nobody any good.
Oh, I am a Pariah, I am unfit to live! In a savage country, to which my thoughts often wander, I would stumble over every taboo, and soon find myself in the oven. As it is, I stumble over everything, stools and lady's trains, and upset porcelain, and break all the odds and ends with which I fidget, and spill the salt, and then pour claret over it, and call on the right people at the wrong houses, and put letters in the wrong envelopes: one of the most terrible blunders of the Social Duffer. Naturally, in place of improving, MACDUFFER gets worse and worse: every failure which he discovers makes him more nervous: besides he knows that, of all his errors, he only finds out a small per-centage. Where can he take refuge? If Robinson Crusoe had been a social Duffer, he and Friday would not have been on speaking terms in a week. People think the poor Duffer malignant, boorish, haughty, unkind; he is only a Duffer, an irreclaimable, sad, pitiful creature, quite beyond the reach of philanthropy. On my grave write, not MISERRIMUS (though that would be true enough), but FUTILISSIMUS.
OUR SPECIAL ARTIST ON TOUR.
A GLADSTONIAN MENU.
The following menu of a banquet, said to have been given at Biarritz not long ago, has been forwarded to us:—