of a theatre would secure a dwarf, a giant, a wild beast tamer, a blind piper, or a sword swallower, to enhance the receipts of the exhibition. About thirty of the fifty people I don’t know from Adam gather immediately in a circle round the chairman. The few who have the honour to be on speaking terms with him jostle him sociably, and shake hands with him with a rueful expression of contentment. Those who don’t know him rub their hands violently, breathe hard, stare fixedly at him, and whisper to one another that he is very like his portrait, or that he isn’t at all like his portrait, or that he is getting old, or that he looks remarkably young, or some equally relevant banalities. The remaining twenty guests gather in the window-bays, and stare at nothing particular, or else read the printed prospectus of the Asylum for Fatuous Monomaniacs, and wonder how many of the fine list of stewards announced may be present on the occasion. As for the chairman, he takes up a position with his back safely glued (so it seems) to the mantelpiece, and preserves a dignified equanimity, working his head from side to side in his white neckcloth like that waxen effigy of Mr. Cobbett, late M.P. for Oldham, which terrifies country cousins by its vitality of appearance (those drab smallclothes and gaiters were a great stroke of genius) at Madame Tussaud’s. By this time a crowd of more people you don’t know from Adam, and often outnumbering the fifty in the waiting-room, have gathered on the staircase, the landing, and have even invaded the precincts of the dining saloon, where they potter about the tables, peeping for the napkins which may contain the special cards bearing their name and denoting their place at the banquet. These are the people who _do_ know one another; these are the stewards, patrons of the charity, or gentlemen connected with its administration. They are all in a very excellent temper, as men need be who are about to partake of a capital dinner and a skinful of wine, and they crack those special jokes, and tell those special funny stories, which you hear nowhere save at a public dinner. Then, at the door, you see a detachment of waiters, bearing fasces of long, blue staves, tipped with brass, which they distribute to sundry inoffensive gentlemen, whose real attributes are at once discovered, and who are patent to the dining-out world as Stewards. They take the staves, looking very much ashamed of them; and, bearing besides a quaint resemblance to undertakers out for a holiday, and in a procession, which would be solemn if it wasn’t funny, precede the chairman to his place of honour.