But it is often otherwise. It is bad enough to get placed beside a foreigner whose language, perhaps, you can read, but whose oral pronunciation is perfectly unintelligible; or beside a very stout and important lady whose ideas, if she have any, run on subjects with which you have no possible sympathy—who is too ponderous, or whose composite capital, perhaps stuck tenderly on with pins, is—it may, from the steadiness of her carriage, be supposed—considered by her too fragile to bear the shaking and jolting of a joke—or really, to confess the truth, one whom, it may possibly be, you cannot be bothered to entertain; or beside a young lady who speaks so low and so timidly, that in the din of dinner it is literally impossible to hear what she says. Nor is it less distressing to be placed beside a very deaf person who not only does not catch what you say, but, as usual with deaf people, speaks indistinctly. Few have not had such an experience as this. You are seated beside what appears to you to be a very amiable, comfortable, benign old lady. The beverage before you is in a condition which it would not be safe to swallow for a little. You are both resting on your oars, or rather on your spoons. The moment is favourable for an opening speech. The subject you select is one of personal and common interest. The observation you hazard is such as would in no event occasion a division bell to ring. Quietly you say, ‘The soup is hot.’ She inclines her face as if she had just heard you were talking in her direction. ‘The soup is hot.’ An inquiring glance is directed to you. Again you repeat rather louder, ‘The soup is hot.’ ‘Sir,’ she replies. In an alto and rather excited pitch you proclaim, ‘The soup is hot.’ By this time everybody has been turning a listening ear. ‘Beg your pardon, sir; but I am rather deaf.’ ‘Madam’ (in an altissimo and crescendo style), ‘The soup _is_ HOT.’ ‘Yes,’ she blandly replies, ‘the room is very hot.’ You are for ever and for ever shut up, and retire from the struggle hot enough yourself. But sometimes the wet blanket comes in another form. I was at one place agreeably set on several occasions beside a lively young German lady, who spoke English fluently. At our first interview I asked, ‘What was their national dish? was it _Sauer–kraut_?’ ‘No, it was larks.’ ‘Oh, you barbarians,’ I replied; ‘do you eat canaries and parrots?’ at which the fair damsel was much shocked. ‘What’s that?’ obviously whispers the heavy German next her on her other side, and this and every other like passage of nonsense had to be translated word for word into this intensely philomathic alien, but withal kindly guide, philosopher, and friend of my young neighbour.