2d. Push on, keep moving! as young Rapid says. Do not think of saying fine things—nobody cares for them any more than for fine music, which is often too liberally bestowed on such occasions. Speak at all ventures, and attempt the _mot pour rire_. You will find people satisfied with wonderfully indifferent jokes, if you can but hit the taste of the company, which depends much on its character. Even a very high party, primed with all the cold irony and _non est tanti_ feelings, or no feelings of fashionable folks, may be stormed by a jovial, rough, round, and ready præses. Choose your text with discretion—the sermon may be as you like. Should a drunkard or an ass break in with any thing out of joint, if you can parry it with a jest, good and well; if not, do not exert your serious authority, unless it is something very bad. The authority even of a chairman ought to be very cautiously exercised. With patience, you will have the support of every one. 3d. When you have drunk a few glasses to play the good fellow and banish modesty (if you are unlucky enough to have such a troublesome companion), then beware of the cup too much. Nothing is so ridiculous as a drunken preses. Lastly, always speak short, and _Skeoch doch na skiel_—cut a tale with a drink. --------------------- Footnote 97: _Orat._ c. 7. Footnote 98: The _Times_. ---------------------------- ---------------------------- OPPORTUNITY. To _bide the time_ is often the means, though slow, of reaping success. Late in the last century, a printseller settled in a leading street of the artistic locality of Soho: during the first six weeks he kept shop, his receipts were not as many pence; nevertheless he was civil and obliging to all callers and inquirers, to whom, in the printselling business, customers are a very small proportion. This obliging disposition was his main investment, and his shop grew to be the resort of print-collectors of all grades—from the rich duke to the hard-working engraver; he became wealthy, and died bequeathing to his family a considerable fortune, and the finest stock of prints in the metropolis.