[Illustration: H]OME we return from otter-hunting. Tired, but expecting a "Nicht wi' RUDDOCK." He is to be at dinner, and a few very intimates are coming in the evening. The few "very intimates" have no distance to drive--merely a matter of eight miles or so. From my window I hear carriages drawing up exactly at two minutes to seven o'clock. Punctuality in Cornwall is the soul of pleasure. Odd: at the last moment I can't find either a collar or a white tie! "Come, Desperation, lend thy furious hold!" Rummage in the drawers, in the portmanteau. Staggered. Where can it be?--the collar, I mean. Rummage again. Getting hot and excited. Ought always to come down to dinner calm, cool, and collected. I shall be the only one late, and _I_ hadn't to come twelve miles to dinner. No excuse except the real one,--"Couldn't find my collars, or a tie." Only one thing for it. Ring the bell, and ask servant. "O yes. Sir! We were changing the drawers from this room to Master's. I dessay, Sir, they're in there." They are. Rapture! _Flash._--Stirring subject for operatic and descriptive music--A Gentleman's Toilet in Difficulties. _Next Difficulty._--Drop a stud suddenly. Hear it fall close by my foot. In fact, I feel, from some peculiar sensation _in_ my foot, that it is here, on the floor, close to me. No. Hunt for it. Can't see it anywhere. [_Mem._--Never travel without duplicate studs. Won't, another time.] Still stooping: feeling about the carpet. Hands getting dirty again, hair coming unbrushed, face growing warm and red. _Flash._--The stud being, as it were, an excrescence on the carpet, can be perceived by lying on the floor, (like an Indian listening to hear if anybody's coming,) and directing your eye in a right line. After this, clothes-brush required. Stud found at last exactly where I thought it had been at first. _Another Difficulty._--Time getting on. 7.10. PENDELL by this time anxious below. Every one arrived. I picture to myself RUDDOCK in the drawing-room, filling up the _mauvais quart d'heure_ by satirical reflections on the dandy (me) who hadn't time enough to beautify himself for dinner. I should be down now, if it wasn't for the button on my collar-band. I feel that it's all over with it, if not touched gently. Once off, and worry will be my portion for the remainder of the evening. And I know what is the result of attempting to pin it. _Note._--"Curses not loud, but deep." Quotation adapted to circumstances.