Her sister-in-law, with the Leader of the Opposition, and his brother; his right-hand man who had been Chancellor in the last administration; his nephew, the Postmaster General; Dolly himself; Dolly’s brother-in-law, the Secretary for India; his little nephew’s wife’s cousin at the Board of Trade, and his stepmother’s brother at the Admiralty, sat down,--and so did Dimmy, who was there without his wife, and also, I regret to say, without a stud, or rather without the head of a stud, in his shirt; for somehow it had broken off. But the reader will have but an imperfect picture of that jolly table if she imagines that it was a mere family party. Our public life is a larger thing than that! Of the five members of the two front benches who were not connected by marriage, two were present: the Minister for Education who could draw such screamingly funny things on blotting-paper, and Beagle, back two days before from Berlin, who could imitate a motor car with his mouth better than any man in Europe. And there also, by a sort of licence, was the Duke of Battersea, brought by Charlie Fitzgerald and his wife. They had already sat down when William Bailey, whom no one had invited, came ponderously and good-humouredly in, affected to stare at the Duke, and made a place for himself as far as possible from that controller of hemispheres, who was in his usual chair on Mary Smith’s right hand, with bulbous baggy eyes for none but her. William Bailey smiled all that evening and smiled especially at Dimmy--but he remained very silent; when, a little before two, they began to make a move, he had not said a dozen words--and Dimmy was exceedingly grateful. Nay, his friendship extended further: he saw Demaine as they all got up from table nervously stuffing a corner of the cloth in mistake for his handkerchief into his trousers pocket. “Look out, Dimmy!” he said. Dimmy jumped, and the tablecloth jumped with him, and then a crash--a great crash of broken glass, and the falling of candles. Mary Smith was very nearly annoyed, but on such an occasion she forgave him. * * * * * North of the Park, for now two hours, Lord Repton of Giggleswick had slept an easy sleep. ON THE PSEUDOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF CARYLL’S GANGLIA A PAMPHLET _Which the reader need not read. It is quite as easy to understand the book without it._ Extract from a lecture delivered, for a grossly insufficient fee, by a professor of great popular reputation at the Royal Institution on January 26th, 1915:--