Puns scientific are effective whenever a scientific man or men are in company, because, in the first place, they invariably hate puns, especially those which are capable of being twisted into jokes which have no possible relation to the science of which the words to be joked upon are terms; and because, in the next place, dear, laughing girls, who are wise enough not to be sages, will love you for disturbing the self-satisfaction of the philosophers, and raising a laugh or titter at their expense. Where there are three or four geologists of the party, if they talk of their scientific tours made to collect specimens, call the old ones "ninny-hammers," and the young ones "chips of the old block"; and then inform them that claret is the best specimen of _quartz_ in the world. If you fall in with a botanist who is holding forth, talk of the quarrels of flowers as a sequel to the loves of the plants, and say they decide their differences with _pistols_. In short, sacrifice everything to the pursuit of punning, and in the course of time you will acquire such a reputation for waggery that the whole company will burst into an immoderate fit of laughing if you only ask the servants for bread, or say "No" to the offer of a cutlet. GREAT WRITERS OFTEN POOR TALKERS. Among Those Who Were Singularly Deficient in the Art of Conversation Were Corneille, Addison, Milton, Dante, and Goldsmith. "He wrote like an angel and talked like poor poll," was the manner in which Oliver Goldsmith was described by one of his contemporaries, and all acounts agree that the author of "The Deserted Village" made a sorry figure as a conversationalist. But Goldsmith was far from being the only writer of undoubted genius whose conversation was devoid of charm. Indeed, there is a wealth of evidence to prove that the art of writing well and talking well are not akin. Descartes, the famous mathematician and philosopher; La Fontaine, celebrated for his witty fables; Buffon, the great naturalist, were all singularly deficient in the powers of conversation. Marmontel, the novelist, was so dull in society that his friend said of him, after an interview, that he must go and read his tales to recompense himself for the weariness of hearing him. As to Corneille, the grandest dramatist in France, he was completely lost in society--so absent and embarrassed that he wrote of himself a witty couplet importing that he was never intelligible but through the mouth of another.