"That's another story," I said. "Let's go to the smoking-room. We shall find the Eminent Person, the Ordinary Man, the Poet, the Journalist, and the Mere Boy, and they will all say delightful things on painful subjects." "Barry Paynful," suggested the Mere Boy, with his usual impossibility. They were trying to "draw" Lord ILLINGWORTH. "What is a good woman?" asked the Journalist. "A woman who admires bad men," answered Lord ILLINGWORTH. "What is a bad man?" "A man who smokes gold-tipped cigarettes." "Which would you rather, or go fishing?" inquired the Mere Boy, irreverently. "Because it's a jar, of course. There are two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. But all art is quite useless." "I say!" exclaimed Lord HENRY, taking from his friend's pocket a gold match-box, curiously carved, and wrought with his initials in chrysoprases and peridots. "I say, you know, ILLINGWORTH--come--that's mine. I said it to DORIAN only the other evening. You're always saying my things." "Well, what then? It is only the obvious and the tedious who object to quotations. When a man says life has exhausted him----" "We know that he has exhausted life." "Women are secrets, not sphinxes." "Mine again," exclaimed Lord HENRY. "It would be useful to carry a little book to note down your good things." "Very useful. And I can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it." "That's New Humour, isn't it? And you're a New Humourist?" said WALKER, satirically. "Why, it's a contradiction in itself! The very essence of a joke is, that it should be old. Where would you find anything funnier than the riddle, 'When is a door not a door?' and, 'Why does a miller wear a white hat?' Ah! it won't last--we're bound to go back to the 'Old Humour'--there's nothing like it--what is that noise?" "A dispute has arisen in the ladies' cloak-room about a shawl. It's frightfully thrilling!" said HILDA WANGEL. "They seem to be going on anyhow. It's nothing," said WALKER. It appears that CHARLEY'S Aunt had accused Princess SALOMÉ of taking her shawl. The Princess had indignantly thrown it at her, and was making rather rude personal remarks about it. "I don't want your shawl. Your shawl is hideous. It is covered with dust. It is a tartan shawl. It is like the shawl worn in melodrama by the injured heroine who is about to throw herself over the bridge by moonlight. It is the shawl of a betrayed heroine in melodrama. There never was anything so hideous as your shawl!" "Impertinence! To dare to speak to me like this! I'm the success of the season, and _you_ were forbidden the country," said CHARLEY'S Aunt, furiously. [Illustration: "The uninvitable in pursuit of the indigestible," murmured Lord Illingworth.]