_Last Week._--There, now I can come to this book with a clear conscience. Done everything. Greek translation of TENNYSON ready for press. Finished letter "Z" last night, in final volume of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Nothing omitted. Rather annoyed to find someone has been tying knots in my handkerchief. Hate practical jokes! Careless person, too, has been hanging my old grey wideawake on the clock in my study. Rather a liberty! Don't like liberties. Always courteous to _everybody_--consequently, expect _everybody_ to be courteous to _me_! Still, can't help smiling. It _was_ a quaint idea to hang my old wideawake on the clock in my study. I wonder what put such a freak into the joker's head! Now let me look at the paper that has just reached me from London. Dear me, "The Vacant Chair." That seems a good title. And all about Gray's Inn! Now, I like Gray's Inn--a most excellent place; everyone connected with it great friends of mine. And writing of Gray's Inn, that reminds me--Good gracious! Why, last night was Thursday, and I forgot to be there!!! * * * * * [Illustration: REFRESHMENTS IN VOGUE. "QUININE OR ANTIPYRINE, MY LADY?"] * * * * * MENU-BETTING. GENTLEMEN who bet on every event in life--who cut cards to decide whether they shall go into the City by cab or by underground train, and toss up to see whether they had better dine at home or at the Club, may be interested to know of a new game of chance which can be played at dinnertime, and in which ladies not only may but must take part. "Betting on the _menu_" it is called; and it is done in this way. You ask the lady next to you on the right--the one you have taken in to dinner--permission to speculate as to what dishes she will choose from among those inscribed on the _menu_; and you back your selection in a series of bets either with the lady herself, or--if she happens not to be what the French call "_sportive_"--with any gentleman who may be willing to do business with you. Suppose the lady takes you? You make a pencil-mark against each dish which, it seems to you, she will fancy; and if you are right more often than you are wrong, you win--and the lady does not pay you. In the contrary case you lose--and you pay the lady. It need scarcely be said that you annotate your own copy of the _menu_, and that the lady does not see it until the dinner is at an end. The same principle is observed in betting with a gentleman in reference to a lady's probable selection; but in this latter case neither of the parties interested is at liberty to express any opinion, directly or indirectly, as to the merits or demerits of the different dishes from which the lady has to choose. Any member of the unfair sex may make sure of winning from her antagonist--who will naturally have marked a certain number of dishes--by simply abstaining from food throughout the dinner; though the lady of the house might think this impolite.