52 CONVERSATIONAL HINTS 



Even if you did, his manner of telling it would 

 flatten you yet he fascinates you with that glassy 

 stare, that self-conscious and self-admiring smirk, 

 and distils his tale into your ears at the very 

 moment when you are burning to talk over old 

 college-days with Chalmers, or to discuss an article 

 in the ' Field ' with Shabrack. 



I remember once finding myself, by some freak 

 of mocking destiny, in a house in which two bores 

 had established fortified camps. On the first night, 

 we all became so dazed with intolerable dulness 

 that our powers of resistance faded away to the 

 vanishing point. Both bores sallied out from their 

 ramparts, laid our little possessions waste, and led 

 each his tale of captives back with him, gagged, 

 bound, and incapable of struggle. 



So next day, when the accustomed train 

 Of things grew round our sense again, 



we agreed together those of us, I mean, who had 

 suffered on the previous night that something 

 must be done. What it was to be we could not at 

 first decide. We should have preferred ' something 

 lingering, with boiling oil in it,' but at last we 

 decided on the brilliant suggestion of Shabrack, 



