A pleasant anecdote follows, by Sir James Berwick, "a busy, meddling,
vain, good-humoured man, whose chief ambition it was to be considered
thoroughly 'a man of the world,' and 'a good member of society.'"

"I was asked to dine with a Sir Dixie Hickson, a stiff, bluff,
beef-eating sort of man, who was under some obligation to me, or I to
him, I don't know which. Well, I forgot name, residence all but the
day--came home in a hurry, looked into the Court Guide, found a Sir
Hicks Dixon, drove to his house, found a party assembled, bowed to a fat
woman in a turban who sailed forward _â la maitresse de maison_, and
simpered an apology, for Sir Hicks', or Sir Dicks', or whatever he might
be, 'unavoidable absence;' I forget why, 'but did not like to put off
the party, and hoped to look in in the evening.' (Mind I had never seen
the _femme_ Hickson.) Down we went to dinner; a guest had failed, so
there was a place for me; did not know a soul of the party; such a set
of creatures were never before assembled on God's earth! Well, I ate,
drank, and talked with the savages, told them some of my best lies, and
was growing immensely popular, when in drops Sir Hicks from the country.
You should have seen us! we set each other like two pointers backing in
a stubble, with a covey between them, while the _femme_ Dixon kept
fussing with an introduction--'Sir Hicks, Sir James,--Sir James, Sir
Hicks!' At last the light broke in, and I explained, and we laughed
about it for a whole hour. I was afraid when all was over I should have
had to pay my debt of dinner to Sir Dixie; but the best of it is, I have
not seen or heard more of either him or Sir Hicks. It would have served
me right if they had asked me to dinner once a week for ever visiting
such people. It is not likely that you should know them."

There is much truth in the following satire upon fashionable travelling;
though persons of fashion are not the only unimproved tourists. In