The people with parlour tricks! Perhaps the most extraordinary of these was Algy Fearon, whose sole accomplishment was to giggle. When he was young, it was treated as a disease; by inoculation when the inoculation craze was in vogue, till his poor little system (he was only eight at the time) was running all over with cachinnococci, as I think they called them—but nothing would stop Algy laughing. Then he went to a mind-cure man, who I believe tickled him unmercifully in the hope that he would have enough of it that way—but nothing would stop Algy laughing. Finally he made a virtue of necessity, and took his degree at Oxford without being sent down more than twice, and came up to London to go into business. To his intense surprise, he became the lion of the hour. Hostesses scrambled for him, and almost got to the point of writing on their cards “to hear Mr. Fearon laugh.” About half-way through dinner, he would break down with no warning whatever, and roll from side to side in agonies of merriment—and every one else had to join in. You couldn’t help yourself. He went out to South Africa afterwards, but I never heard that he was cured. And there was Irene Hopgood (Frank Hopgood’s sister), who was a princess of make up, and would never go out anywhere except in a disguise. It was very exciting work asking her to a dinner-party, because you never knew how she would arrive: I have known her dress up as a waitress, and I have known her come through the window in short skirts pretending to be a burglar! And there was old Lady Frances Holly, who still did “knitting” and “embroidery,” and carried about a large bag with her containing the materials of her craft. And Dick Crawshall, who still rode one of the old bicycles that you propelled with your feet; one day, for a bet, he rode it all round Selfridge’s, the assistants looking on quite calmly and imagining that it was some new child’s toy of which he was giving an exhibition for the benefit of customers. And Blanche Engelstein, who carried about with her a little bag of what she called “compliment cards,” which she presented to the best-dressed woman in the room, and the maker of what she thought the best remark of the evening, and so on.