Punch (102.1892)

202

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[April 23, 1892.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

No. Yin.—THE DUFFER AS A HOST.

Of course I don't try to give dinners at home. The difficulties and
anxieties are too enormous. First there is inviting the people. I
like to have none but very clever men and very pretty women, but
nobody's acquaintance is limited to those rare beings, and, if I did
invite them, they would all have previous engagements: I do not
blame them. But suppose that two or three of the wits and beauties
accept, that is worse than ever, because the rest are a Q.C. (who
talks about his cases) and his wife, who talks about her children.
An old school-fellow, who has no conversation that does not begin,
"I say, do you remember old Jack Williams. ' This does not
entertain the beauty, who sits next him.

A Dowager Duchess, she knows none of the other people and
wonders audibly (to me) who they are. A clever young man, whose

However, they do g» away at last, that advantage a dinner at
home has over a dinner at the Club, there they often seem as if they
would never go away at all.

On the other hand, the wine is all right at the Club, I believe, for
I know nothing about wine myself. Some men talk of nothing else,
and seem to know the vintages without looking at the names on
the bottles.

The worst of giving a dinner at the Club is, that I never know
how many men I have asked, nor even who they are. It is enough
if I remember the date. It might be a good thing to write these
matters down in a Diary, or on a big sheet of paper, pinned up in
one's room. I know I have written to ask some Americans whom I
have not seen : they brought letters of introduction. I forget their
names—there is a Professor who has written a' novel, there is a
General, I think, and a Mad Doctor.

My best plan will be to stand about in the drawing-room, and try
to select them as they come in. Here is Wilkinson, who was at

language is the language of the future, and whose humour is of a St. Jude's with me: I shake hands with him warmly- He looks
date to which I humbly hope my own days may not be prolonged. A | blank. It is not Wilkinson, after all; it is a stranger, he is dining
Psychical Researcher, with a note-book; he gets at the Duchess with somebody else. Some other men have come in while I am
at once, and cross-examines her about a visionary Piper who plays apologising. One of them comes up and says, "Mr. McDuffer!"
audible pibrochs 1 ~ He must be an Ameri-

through Castle Bla- ^ I '. ]'. I'l! j c • A can. Which ? He tells

wearie, her ancestral
home. Does she think
the pibroch could be
taken down in a phono-
graph. Could the Piper
be snapped in a kodak ?
The Duchess does not
know what a phono-
graph is; never heard
of a kodak. She does
not like the note-book
any more than Mr.

Pickwick's cabman ' 1 WmBW^ Here is old Bkilby—

liked it. She is afraid
of getting into print.
Then there is the War-
den of St. Jude's, a
great scholar; he pricks
up his ears, not the
keenest, at the word
kodak, and begins to
talk about a newly-

Podonian the| Elder.
Nobody knows what a
Codex is. There is a
School-board Lady, but,
alas, she is next the
Warden of St. Jude's,
not next the enthu-
siastic Clergyman, who

me: he is the Mad
Doctor. He introduces
his countrymen; they
all say "Mr. McDuf-
fer! " How am I to
remember which is the
General and which is
the Professor Y Other
people drop in. Here
is Cbimpton. He is a
Reviewer. Clever
fellow, Cbimpton.

he is hot from the
University Match. He
begins to tell me all
about it. Jones was
awfully well set, but
that muff Smith ran
him out. Beilby does
not believe it was out.
Odd the spite umpires

discovered Codex of \&&i0§0S^^ always have at our

side. Feel that I
must tear myself from
Beilby, the only man
whose conversation
really interests me.
Here is an English wri-
ter on military subjects.
I introduce him to the

proses about a Club for ^j.^c.^^tl^'S^T^^_=:~^'--*~ ' ' 5—==-i=^T^r American General.

Milliners. There is . . . . . Find he is the Professor,

Gbjgsby, who develops 1 1S mic*night! 1 am tired to death, les, Beilby mil nave something- to drink, and another after all. We get down-

an undesirable interest cigar—a very large one." stairs somehow. Beilby

in the Milliners' Club. Have they a Strangers' Room ? Do they
give suppers ? Are they Friendly Girls ? Everyone thinks Gbjgsby
flippant and coarse; I wish I had not asked him to come. There is
a Positivist, who sneers at the Clergyman; there are a Squire and
his wife from Rutlandshire : she is next the Radical Candidate for
the Isle of Dogs. They do not seem to get on well together. Gbigsby
and the humorist of the future are chaffing each other across the
table: nobody understands them; I don't know whether they are
quarrelling or not. Miss Jones, the authoress of Melancholy Moods
(in a Greek dress, with a pince-nez : a woman should not combine
these attributes) is next the Squire: he has never heard of any of
her friends the Minor Poets: she takes no interest in Hay, nor in
Tithes. I see the Guardsman and the Beauty looking at each other
across the flowers and things: the language of their eyes is not
difficult, nor pleasant, to read. Why is the champagne so hot, and
why are the ices so salt and hard ? I know something is the matter
with the claret: something is always the matter with the claret. It
has been iced, and the champagne has been standing for days in an
equable temperature of 65°.

When they want to go away, it is a wet night, and those who have
come in cabs cannot get cabs to go back in. The Duchess's coach-
man lost his way, coming here, she was half-an-hour late: she is
anxious about his finding his way home. Gbigsby has got at the
Psychical-Researcher, and I hear him telling stories, as personal
experiences, which I know are not true. Psychical-Researchers have
no sense of humour. " S. P. R.," why not " S. P. Q,. R. ? " I hear
Gbigsby asking, and suggesting " Society for Propagating Rubbish."
It is very rude of him, and not at all funny.

is opposite me. Cbimpton is next the Professor. The Military
Writer is next the General. Things do not appear to_ go very
smoothly. It seems that the Military one has said something about
General Bealbegard which he should not have said. The General
is getting red. I hate it, when men begin to talk about the American
War. Any other war they are welcome to: the Danish War, the
war of 1866, the war of 1870, the glorious affair of Majuba. But
Americans are touchy about their war, not easy to please them what-
ever you say. Much best to say nothing. Cbimpton is laughing at
American novels. He does not know that the Professor is an Ameri-
can novelist. What am I to do ? I try to kick him under the table.
I kick the Mad Doctor, and apologise. Was feeling about for a
footstool. Beilby is trying to talk about Base Ball to the General,
who is still red. Nothing is more disagreeable than these inter-
national discussions at dinner.

Now, a clever host would know how to get out of this ; he would
start some other subject. I can think of no other subject. Happy
thought: gradually glide into American cookery, clams, canvas-
backed ducks, what is that dish with a queer name—Jumbo ? I
don't feel as if it were Jumbo. Squambo ? Terapin soup ? It
sounds rather like the Hebrew for a talisman, or an angel of some
sort. However, they are talking about cookery now, and wines. Is
there not an American wine called Catawampus ? The Mad Doctor
has his eye on me; he seems interested. 1 thought I heard him
murmur Aspasia, or Aphasia, or something like that. It is not
Catawampus—it is Catawba. I feel that I patauge—flounder, I
mean. I am getting quite nervous; feel like a man in a powder-
magazine, with lighted cigarettes everywhere. If one can withdraw