A tall gentlemanly man wanting to see me on particular business. What can it be? Perhaps it is to edit _The Times_; perhaps to send Dr Russell home, after taking his pencil and note-book out of his war-correspondent hands; or maybe to put out the GAS of the _Daily Telegraph_. Is it to elevate the _Standard_, distribute the _Daily News_, act as astronomer-royal to the _Morning_ and _Evening Stars_, to roll the _Globe_, or be its _Atlas_, take the spots from the face of the _Sun_, blow the great trumpet of the _Morning Herald_, literary field-marshal in some review, rebuild some damaged or exploded magazine? What can the business be? Not stage business, certainly, for that is not my branch. Law? perhaps so. A legacy--large, of course, or one of the principals would not have come down instead of writing. It must be so: I am next of kin to somebody, and I shall buy _that_ estate after all. Enter tall gentlemanly man upon his particular business of a private nature; and then, being a quiet, retiring person, to whom it is painful to speak rudely or without that glaze which is commonly called politeness, I suffer a severe cross-examination as to age, wife's ditto, number of children, and so on. I am told of the uncertainty of life-- the liability of the thread to snap, without the aid of the scissors of Atropos--how strengthening the knowledge of having made provision for my ewe and lambs would be if I were ill; how small the amount would be; how large a bonus would be added if I assured at once; how mine would be sure to be a first-class life--he had not seen the phials and pill-boxes in the bedroom cupboard--how nothing should be put off until to-morrow which could be done to-day, which I already knew; how a friend of his had written twelve reasons why people should assure, which reasons he kindly showed to me; and told me an abundance of things which he said I ought to know. He had answer pat for every possible or impossible objection that I could make, having thoroughly crammed himself for his task; and he knocked me down, bowled me over, got me up in corners, over the ropes, in Chancery, fell upon me heavily; in fact, as the professors of the "noble art" would say--the noble art of self-defence and offence to the world--had it all his own way. I had no idea what a poor debater I was, or that I could be so severely handled. My ignorance was surprising; and I should have been melancholy afterwards instead of angry, if I had not consoled myself with the idea that I was not in training for a life assurance fight.