have probably more acquaintances among them than I; but I recognise Robinson Crusoe and Count Bismarck, Tarquinius Priscus and Horace Greeley, John Ruskin and Lucrezia Borgia, Mrs. Fry and Edgar Poe, Mr. Gladstone and Dion Boucicault, John Bright and Mrs. Grundy, Ben. Wade and Victor Hugo, Pio Nono and the Great Mogul. Note, too, the various material moulded into circular form, and blown up by way of ambulant footstool; now it is a crown, now a crozier, now a bag of gold, now a wind-bag, now a woman's heart, now a man's fame done up in a newspaper and properly puffed. Ring the changes upon these Ethardi and the motive power that each applies, O my wakeful friend; and at least you may lose sight of your own individuality. Or, take a slide down the banisters with the young Cherubs, and perchance you may touch bottom--in Lethe. Not so? Let us proceed. There's a man at our Club, whose reputation is so solidly built up, though on an ethereal basis, that I never knew any one presume to question it. He is an absolute master of one accomplishment; unrivalled, and--to the best of my belief, though I can't vouch for the fact--unenvied. Admiring spectators gather round him and applaud; but, if he have ambitious imitators, they rehearse in secret. So far, he does well--ay, with consummate tact and unfailing certainty--what few men can do at all, unless once in a while at dreary intervals, and then by accident. Not to keep you in suspense, which is antagonistic to repose and slumber, this young paragon contrives to throw off his cigar-smoke from his lips, at will, in an unerring series of the most lovely rings or wreaths, which, as they float and rise in tremulous succession, strangely fascinate the looker-on. It may be that this feat is not much of an achievement, morally or physically or intellectually considered. It may be also that the Club does not do itself much honour, in setting so high a value on this performance. But what will you? In the palmy days of Greece, a man acquired a certain celebrity by his precision and address in throwing peas through a needle's eye--the peas being, I presume, much smaller or the needles much larger, than any with which we sow or make soup in these degenerate days. Still, so highly do I appreciate perseverance in the acquirement of any difficult art, that I purpose doing much more for my proficient in smoke, than was done for his man of peas by Philip of Macedon. That bushel of ammunition was a scurvy reward. I confer immortality, by thus registering a fact and hinting a name. And I do this from a sense of gratitude, wherein I trust that you will participate, so soon as you perceive the connection that may surely be traced, between the smoke thus artistically and gracefully jetted into air, and the drowsiness by which you would fain be possessed. Do but imagine a score of your acquaintances round a table, each an adept in this way, and each filling the atmosphere with coronet after coronet of vapour thrown up from