Milburd asks Medford to accompany him in a “little thing of his own.” The ladies have taken their turn at the piano, and Medford himself has favoured us with half an hour's worth of his unpublished compositions. Milburd announces his song as “A Waiting Game.”

(Suggested by “A Dreary Lot is Mine.”)

Mrs. Boodels wants to know if he won't kindly sing it to her through her ear-trumpet. He promises to do so, one day when they are alone.

SECOND VERSE.

Nobody asks him to sing again. Mrs. Frimmely says, “She only cares for French songs. English comic songs,” she adds, “are so vulgar.” Settler for Milburd. Glad of it.

After this Milburd says he's got another; a better one. We say, sing it to-morrow.

Happy Thought (expressed in a complimentary manner).—A good song, like yours, is better for keeping.

Note to Myself.

The age for compliments is gone. The courtly and polished AbbÉ, who would have said the above epigrammatically when it would have been considered remarkably witty, has passed away. No one believes in compliment. It has no currency, except done in a most commonplace way. But the epigrammatic compliment, the well-prepared impromptu, the careful rehearsed inspiration, is out of date. Now-a-days there are no wits, and no appreciation of The Wits. Conversation is damped by a bon-mot. An awful silence follows the most brilliant jeu de mot, as sombre as the darkness after a forked flash, or as the gardens at the Crystal Palace after the last bouquet of fireworks.

Conversation is like a boot. When damped it loses its polish.

[The above remarks occasioned by no one having taken any notice of my epigram, and Milburd only replying to it by saying, “Oh! bosh!”]