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 remarks without securing any return whatever — as if one were filling a pin-cushion, which you may have remarked is a very one-sided operation. At an early stage of the dinner I turned him over to Arbuthnot, who, with a faculty which I do not possess, immediately discovered him to be an enthusiast on military history, and set him chattering like a jackdaw. There are many people who thus resemble one-half of a Seidlitz powder. So long as you don’t know what particular topic to mix with their intelligence, it remains flat and lifeless; but once stir it up with the proper ingredient and it promptly begins to effervesce. The other half of the Berrith powder was Napoleon, and as Arbuthnot is something of a Bonapartisan himself, the two of them got on famously — and left Miss Berrith to me.

“And how do you manage to get along with Darius?” said she.

“I’m sure I can’t imagine,” I answered