since the pheasant was winged in your prairie, is not information at all inconsonant with conjectures as to the genuineness of the diamonds and laces of the lady opposite, as to the gains and losses in stocks of Mr. Breezy, at the other end of the table, as to the probable result of the flirtation between Miss Rosy and the brilliant Colonel, or as to the chances of the too conscious lady in pink at the left of the gentleman with side-whiskers being his bride or his sweetheart, or his wife or another's.

The stout gentleman in a low waistcoat, mixing his salad so abstractedly and artistically, would be a study for you. His obedient and handy servant is kept busy supplying materials. The lettuce, by the good diner, is carefully culled and examined, to see that no disgusting bug is hidden away between the suspicious leaves. The eggs are boiled to the happy hardness. The caster is exhausted for condiments and appetizers, and still the poor servant is kept busy supplying the artist's wants. All the while the good lord of the stomach is

patient and absorbed and occupied. The sweet napkins are flaked about him and upon him, under his chin, over his knees, on his left, on his right, before his eyes. His calmness is the serenity of an astronomer looking up a new planet. The requisite salt to the infinitesimal of a grain is meted out, the red and black pepper mathematically proportioned, the acid and oil measured to a drop, and the whole is chopped up and sugared till the result in the dish looks so perfectly mixed as if indeed there had once been employed upon it all the chemistry of nature.

And the little woman with the blue face and twisted nose and big diamond would interest you as much. To see her go through the bill of fare you would think she had just escaped with her life from a respectable boarding-house. Double portions of every thing, and rapidly disappearing. She is a mystery and a wonder. My poor wife, invalid that she is, with little interest in this fading world, has watched her with absorbing interest, and

finds in her gastronomic enthusiasm and achievements an incentive to live to know the result of her prodigious industry. Go when you will into the spacious saloons devoted to eating, you will always find her. Early and late and all the time at breakfast, sitting through the whole hour devoted to luncheon, at the plebeian's early dinner, at the later state banquet, at tea, silently and insatiably, and at supper at midnight, with raw oysters, cold chicken, a pitcher of milk, and olives, just for a nightcap, as she facetiously and felicitously calls them, at the same time bearing a hungry eye on the smoking stew of a passenger by the midnight train.

And you would be not less interested in observing the select gentlemen who always occupy the table directly in range of the main entrance. Their leisurely indifference and repose are not less remarkable than their practised habits of observation. Possibly one of them, with the buttoned coat, younger than the rest, may have blushed sometime within a

decade, as his eye has an adventuring hesitancy denoting occasional introspection. His look is not quite a stare, and his eye seems of shorter range than the rifled brasses about him. His glances, compared with theirs, have a random unsteadiness, as occasional shots which precede or follow a volley. But he seems ashamed of his little remnant of modesty, and no doubt in time will achieve the envied effrontery. When he forgets that his mother was a woman, and once was married, he will as indecently discuss a bride as any of his accomplished companions. His eye in company with theirs will follow and fasten upon her with an eagerness and a tenacity in proportion to the pain of her embarrassment. And if looks fall short of perfectly torturing the shrinking innocent, his pitiless words will audibly accompany theirs to complete her misery. Poor hesitating consciousness; how it staggers and falls back before this faculty of gossips. They know every poor woman's coat of mail, and strike hardest where she is most unprotected and sensitive.

But heartily they love a shining mark of artlessness for skilful practice. The veterans of watering-places and public amusements, who have withstood the searching gaze of elegant idlers and roués for untold seasons, they know to be iron-clad and impenetrable. They prefer not to dull their daggers upon callousness, but to keep them bright and whetted for such as are yet a little tender. The shrinking gives a relish, and pure blood is fragrant. My wife, Jack, is the most amiable woman in the world, but she will sometimes lose her temper with these philosophers. While they sit as easily as in a restaurant, with their bottles of wine ostentatiously ranged before them, surveying complacently the dining-room to find some new object for discussion, her tongue, in spite of her, will sometimes quicken into eloquent indignation. If I would naturally smile at their sublime conceit, the energy of my wife's denunciation still more excites my admiration ; and for this splendid reminder of her old brilliancy, I am quite willing to forgive them.