"Well, I can't exactly 'member it," she explained, "not just at the
moment. But it was so funny. I dreamed it, you know."

For folks not Lions, but closely related to Lions, introductions must
be trying ordeals. You tell them that for years you have been
yearning to meet them. You assure them, in a voice trembling with
emotion, that this is indeed a privilege. You go on to add that when
a boy -

At this point they have to interrupt you to explain that they are not
the Mr. So-and-So, but only his cousin or his grandfather; and all
you can think of to say is: "Oh, I'm so sorry."

I had a nephew who was once the amateur long-distance bicycle
champion. I have him still, but he is stouter and has come down to a
motor car. In sporting circles I was always introduced as
"Shorland's Uncle." Close-cropped young men would gaze at me with
rapture; and then inquire: "And do you do anything yourself, Mr.
Jerome?"

But my case was not so bad as that of a friend of mine, a doctor. He
married a leading actress, and was known ever afterwards as "Miss B-
's husband."

At public dinners, where one takes one's seat for the evening next to
someone that one possibly has never met before, and is never likely
to meet again, conversation is difficult and dangerous. I remember
talking to a lady at a Vagabond Club dinner. She asked me during the
entree--with a light laugh, as I afterwards recalled--what I thought,
candidly, of the last book of a certain celebrated authoress. I told