You have sometimes been in a train on the railroad when the engine was detached a long way from the station you were approaching? Well, you have noticed how quietly and rapidly the cars kept on, just as if the locomotive were drawing them? Indeed, you would not have suspected that you were travelling on the strength of a dead fact, if you had not seen the engine running away from you on a side-track. Upon my conscience, I believe some of these pretty women detach their minds entirely, sometimes, from their talk,--and, what is more, that we never know the difference. Their lips let off the fluty syllables just as their fingers would sprinkle the music-drops from their pianos; unconscious habit turns the phrase of thought into words just as it does that of music into notes.--Well, they govern the world, for all that,--these sweet-lipped women,--because beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom. ----The Bombazine wanted an explanation. Madam,--said I,--wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future. ----All this, however, is not what I was going to say. Here am I, suppose, sealed--we will say at a dinner-table--alongside of an intelligent Englishman. We look in each other's faces,--we exchange a dozen words. One thing is settled: we mean not to offend each other,--to be perfectly courteous,--more than courteous; for we are the entertainer and the entertained, and cherish particularly amiable feelings to each other. The claret is good; and if our blood reddens a little with its warm crimson, we are none the less kind for it. ----I don't think people that talk over their victuals are like to say anything very great, especially if they get their heads muddled with strong drink before they begin jabberin'. The Bombazine uttered this with a sugary sourness, as if the words had been steeped in a solution of acetate of lead.--The boys of my time used to call a hit like this a "side-winder." ----I must finish this woman.-- Madam,--I said,--the Great Teacher seems to have been fond of talking as he sat at meat. Because this was a good while ago, in a far-off place, you forget what the true fact of it was,--that those were real dinners, where people were hungry and thirsty, and where you met a very miscellaneous company. Probably there was a great deal of loose talk among the guests; at any rate, there was always wine, we may believe.