If I ever have a goat, and you won't let me call it Charles, I shall call it David. My eldest brother, you, know, was christened David, and called so for a year; but at the end of that time we had a boot-and-knife-boy who was unfortunately named David too. (I say "we," but I was still in the Herebefore myself.) This led to great confusion. When the nurse called for David to come and take his bottle, it was very vexing to find the other David turning up with a brown shoe in one hand and a fish-knife in the other. Something had to be done. The baby was just beginning to take notice; the leather polisher had just refused to. In the circumstances the only thing was to call the baby by his second name. Two or three years passed rapidly, and I arrived. Just as this happened, the boot-boy took the last knife and went. Now was our chance. My second name had already been fixed; it was immediately decided that my first should be David. The new boot-boy didn't mind a bit; everybody else seemed delighted ... and then someone remembered that in ten years' time I should be going to school. Yes, Charles, the initials D.A.M.... You know what boys are; it would have been very awkward. And so now you see why I am going to call my pedigree goat David. V DEAR CHARLES,--I am learning to dance the minuet. I say "the" instead of "a" because I am sure mine is a very particular kind of one. You start off with three slides to the left, then three to the right, and then you stop and waggle the left leg. After that you bow to your partner in acknowledgement of the interest she has taken in it all, and that ends the first figure. There are lots more, but one figure at a time is my motto. At present I slide well, but I am a moderate waggler. _Why_ am I doing this, you ask. My dear Charles, you never know when a little thing like a minuet will turn out useful. The time may well come when you will say to yourself, "Ah, if only I had seized the opportunity of learning that when I was young, how ... etc." There were once two men who were cast ashore on a desert island. One of them had an axe, and a bag of nails, and a goat, and a box of matches, and a barrel of gunpowder, and a keg of biscuits, and a tarpaulin and some fish-hooks. The other could only dance the minuet. Years rolled by; and one day a ship put in at that island for water. As a matter of fact, there was no water there, but they found two skeletons. Which shows that in certain circumstances proficiency in the minuet is as valuable as an axe, and a bag of nails, and a goat and a box of matches, and all the other things that I mentioned just now. So I am learning in case.