learned beggar, who pleads _necessitas non habet legem_, and "embraces
the profession of an operative mendicant." But here is a _morceau_:

_Lady D._--Ah! Lord A.! Mr. C.! most unexpected persons both! I heard
only yesterday that one of you was in Greenland, and the other in
Africa. What false reports they circulate!

_Lord A._--The reports were true not long ago, and I believe we returned
about the same time. You, Lady D., have been also travelling, I believe.

_Lady D._--Yes, we were out of England in the winter. Our physician
commanded a warmer climate for Lord D. so we took a villa on the Niger,
and afterwards spent a short time at Sackatoo.

_Mr. C._--I suppose you found it full of English?

_Lady D._--Oh, quite full--and such a set! We knew hardly any of them.
In fact, we did not go there for society. We met a few pleasant people,
Australians; the Abershaws, the Hardy Vauxes, and Sir William and Lady
Soames.

_Mr. C._--Did you go by the new Tangier and Timbuctoo road?

_Lady D._--Yes, we did, and we found it excellent. By the bye, Lord A.,
to digress to a different latitude, how did you succeed in your last
excursion to the North Pole?

_Lord A._--To tell you the truth, extremely ill; we had most
improvidently taken with us scarcely enough of the _solvent_ to work our
way through the ice, and our concentrated essence of caloric was found