And then, of course, there are liqueur glasses, and crystallised fruits, and tapestry curtains, and heaps of other necessaries of life that make really sensible presents--not to speak of luxuries, such as having one's bills paid, or getting something quite sweet in the way of jewellery. Unlike the alleged Good Woman of the Bible, I'm not above rubies. When found, by the way, she must have been rather a problem at Christmas-time; nothing short of a blank cheque would have fitted the situation. Perhaps it's as well that she's died out. The great charm about me (concluded Reginald) is that I am so easily pleased. But I draw the line at a "Prince of Wales" Prayer-book. REGINALD ON THE ACADEMY "One goes to the Academy in self-defence," said Reginald. "It is the one topic one has in common with the Country Cousins." "It is almost a religious observance with them," said the Other. "A kind of artistic Mecca, and when the good ones die they go"-- "To the Chantrey Bequest. The mystery is _what_ they find to talk about in the country." "There are two subjects of conversation in the country: Servants, and Can fowls be made to pay? The first, I believe, is compulsory, the second optional." "As a function," resumed Reginald, "the Academy is a failure." "You think it would be tolerable without the pictures?" "The pictures are all right, in their way; after all, one can always _look_ at them if one is bored with one's surroundings, or wants to avoid an imminent acquaintance." "Even that doesn't always save one. There is the inevitable female whom you met once in Devonshire, or the Matoppo Hills, or somewhere, who charges up to you with the remark that it's funny how one always meets people one knows at the Academy. Personally, I _don't_ think it funny." "I suffered in that way just now," said Reginald plaintively, "from a woman whose word I had to take that she had met me last summer in Brittany." "I hope you were not too brutal?" "I merely told her with engaging simplicity that the art of life was the avoidance of the unattainable." "Did she try and work it out on the back of her catalogue?" "Not there and then. She murmured something about being 'so clever.' Fancy coming to the Academy to be clever!" "To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the evening." "Which reminds me that I can't remember whether I accepted an invitation from you to dine at Kettner's to-night." "On the other hand, I can remember with startling distinctness not having asked you to." "So much certainty is unbecoming in the young; so we'll consider that settled. What were you talking about? Oh, pictures. Personally, I rather like them; they are so refreshingly real and probable, they take one away from the unrealities of life." "One likes to escape from oneself occasionally."