Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/180

142 "But it needs many other things to make a perfect dinner!" said Lady Muriel, evidently anxious to change the subject. "Mein Herr! What is your idea of a perfect dinner-party?"

The old man looked round smilingly, and his gigantic spectacles seemed more gigantic than ever. "A perfect dinner-party?" he repeated. "First, it must be presided over by our present hostess!"

"That, of course!" she gaily interposed. "But what else, Mein Herr?"

"I can but tell you what I have seen," said Mein Herr, "in mine ownin the country I have traveled in."

He paused for a full minute, and gazed steadily at the ceilingwith so dreamy an expression on his face, that I feared he was going off into a reverie, which seemed to be his normal state. However, after a minute, he suddenly began again.

"That which chiefly causes the failure of a dinner-party, is the running-shortnot of meat, nor yet of drink, but of conversation."

"In an English dinner-party," I remarked, "I have never known small-talk run short!"