seem to render him an undesirable associate of the company, he should
remember that some people may have relatives whom they feel bound to keep
their eye on; besides the cracked Teacup brings out the ring of the sound
ones as nothing else does. Remember also that soundest teacup does not
always hold the best tea, or the cracked teacup the worst.

This is a hint to the reader, who is not expected to be too curious about
the individual Teacups constituting our unorganized association.

The Dictator Discourses.

I have been reading Balzac's Peau de Chagrin. You have all read the
story, I hope, for it is the first of his wonderful romances which fixed
the eyes of the reading world upon him, and is a most fascinating if
somewhat fantastic tale. A young man becomes the possessor of a certain
magic skin, the peculiarity of which is that, while it gratifies every
wish formed by its possessor, it shrinks in all its dimensions each time
that a wish is gratified. The young man makes every effort to ascertain
the cause of its shrinking; invokes the aid of the physicist, the
chemist, the student of natural history, but all in vain. He draws a red
line around it. That same day he indulges a longing for a certain
object. The next morning there is a little interval between the red line
and the skin, close to which it was traced. So always, so inevitably.
As he lives on, satisfying one desire, one passion, after another, the
process of shrinking continues. A mortal disease sets in, which keeps
pace with the shrinking skin, and his life and his talisman come to an
end together.

One would say that such a piece of integument was hardly a desirable
possession. And yet, how many of us have at this very moment a peau de