and of racing in a third, his awful notes blend in from the fourth corner
with strident remarks on Bulgarian philology.

The ancient Greeks were well accustomed to club life, for each of their
little cities was only a large club. They had, therefore, to deal with
the problem of bores. Some of them, consequently, had the institution of
annually devoting to the infernal gods the most unpopular citizens. These
persons were called _catharmata_, which may be freely translated
"scapegoats." Could not clubs annually devote one or more scapebores to
the infernal gods? They might ballot for them, of course, on some
merciful and lenient principle. One white ball in ten or twenty-black
ones might enable the bore to keep his membership for the next year. The
warning, if he only escaped this species of ostracism very narrowly,
might do him a great deal of moral good. Of course the process would be
unpleasant, but it is seldom agreeable to be done good to. Occasionally
even the most good-natured members would stand apart, not voting, or even
would place the black ball in the mystic urn. Then the scapebore would
have his subscription returned to him, and would be obliged to seek in
other haunts servants to swear at, and sofas to snore on. Another
suggestion, that members should be balloted for anew every five years,
would simply cause clubs to be depopulated. Pall-Mall and St. James's
would be desolate, mourning their children, and refusing comfort. The
system would act like a proscription. People would give up their friends
that they might purchase aid against their enemies. Clubs are more
endurable as they are, though members do suffer grievously from the
garrulity, the coughs, the slumbrous tendencies, and the temper of their
fellow-men.