"_This piece must come off at once_;" _i.e._, "I've got one which would just come in nicely, and could let 'em have it cheap." "_The dialogue is poor, the plot badly constructed_;" _i.e._, "These are the two things for which everybody is going to praise this dramatic author. So I'll have my knife into him." "_The music is pretty enough, though some of the principal melodies irresistibly call to mind the popular works of other composers_;" _i.e._, "He'll be praised for his originality. Bah! I've written things just as good as these." "_A most amusing Article, but a little of it goes a long way_;" _i.e._, Is tired of his subject, and wants to turn his attention to something else. SOCIAL. "_It's a very curious fact_;" _i.e._, "Now to pile on the embroidery." "_Now, do drop all formality, and look in to dinner quite in a friendly way. But you must take us just as you find us_;" _i.e._, "It counts as a formal invitation, and he's sure not to come." "_You can't come! Oh, I'm so sorry!_" _i.e._, "Didn't even know I'd asked her." PLATFORMULARS. "_If at any time, by one jot, or one tittle, or one hair's breadth, or in the very slightest degree, or in the least_;" _i.e._, "What, oh, what was I going to say? Can't go on like this for ever." "_Never was the country menaced with a more critical danger; never was our Party more enthusiastically united in confronting it_;" _i.e._, "It won't make a bad cry, and may pull the stragglers together a bit." "_An oration which for a splendid combination of close reasoning and moving eloquence, is scarcely paralleled even among the many masterpieces of the illustrious speaker_;" _i.e._, "An average speech from the point of view of the speaker's journalistic supporters." "_Its loose logic, ineffective rhetoric, and undignified petulance, furnishes a pitiful proof of the intellectual and moral decadence of a once great name_;" _i.e._, The same oration seen from the other side. FRIENDLY COMMENTS ON CHARACTER AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS. "_His knowledge of music is something quite phenomenal_;" _i.e._, "He knows, and can talk about, absolutely nothing else." "_Would be quite lovely, but for a certain_ je ne sais quoi _which repels most people_;" _i.e._, "Beautiful beyond all criticism that is not vaguely venomous." "_You dear thing_!" _i.e._, "You inconsequent little noodle!" CURIOMANIA. "_How quite too weirdly quaint!_" _i.e._, "What an uncanny horror of archaic ugliness!" "_How quite too awfully kind of you to take all this trouble!_" _i.e._, "Foolish old faddist! What is bliss to him is boredom to me." "_How fearful you must be of fire!_" _i.e._, "Oh, for a lucky conflagration!" RAILROAD AMENITIES. "_Oh, I'm sure I shall enjoy it immensely_;" _i.e._, "He can't talk any more than a semaphore, and looks as sleepy as an owl." "_What! You go right on to-day without changing? That is nice;_" _i.e._, "Confound it! I thought there would be a chance of a cigar after the Junction."