The memoirs of such a man are of immense value, as they give to posterity an intimate picture of the life of his day, which, after all, is vastly more important than accounts of battles and Presidential elections. But I do not for an instant suppose that Mr. Mudison, in those hours between his morning coffee and his breakfast at the Ping-pong Club, when he scribbled his fragmentary accounts of his adventures, had any idea that he was rendering a service to future generations. He was simply killing time. In truth, there is much in his notes that is trivial, even much that might be called worthless. But there is a great deal that will be of immense interest, dealing as it does with some of the most important social events of the day. A part of this it has been my good fortune to gather together in more lasting form than his scattered pages, and with a few corrections in spelling and grammar it has been prepared for future study. * * * * * I am just back from a most charming week-end at R. Timpleton Duff's in Westchester, and, upon my word, I do not know whether I am glad or sorry that I went. My appetite this morning was completely satiated with half a roll and a cup of coffee, so I think that instead of going to the club I shall take a stroll in the park and ponder it all over. Confound women, anyway! A man should never let himself be caught straying from within call of the avenue. There only is he safe. You meet women in town, but you never get to know them. It is on these infernal house-parties that they depend. There it is that they get you off in a corner and talk to you about your hopes and ambitions, discover that they agree with you exactly on the latest plays and novels, reveal to you their own unhappiness and their belief in the hollowness of life as it is at present. It always takes me a week to recover my appetite after a house-party, and I vow that each one will be my last. But Mrs. Duff is artful. She knows me of old. She never writes, lest she give me an opportunity to think up an excuse. She calls me on the 'phone, and asks if I have anything to do to-morrow, and being taken by surprise and fearing to betray myself by a quaver in my voice, I stupidly say no. There I am caught! A few hours later down she comes in a car, and I am whirled away at a forty-mile-an-hour clip to Restabit-- I think that is the name of their place. As is usual when you go by car and your luggage by rail, my bag did not arrive in time for dinner, and I had to array myself in one of Timpleton's old suits, which fit so abominably that Mrs. Underbunk, evidently thinking me a servant, swept proudly by when we met in the hall. This, of course, made a huge joke when I followed her into the drawing-room and was formally presented.