Breathless and perspiring, you trot, a pitiable spectacle, at the
litter's side; or if he walks--you know what Rome is--, up hill and down
dale after him you tramp. While he is paying a call on a friend, you are
left outside, where, for lack of a seat, you are fain to take out your
book and read standing.

Night finds you hungry and thirsty. You snatch an apology for a bath; and
it is midnight or near it before you get to dinner. You are no longer an
honoured guest; no longer do you engage the attention of the company. You
have retired to make room for some newer capture. Thrust into the most
obscure corner, you sit watching the progress of dinner, gnawing in
canine sort any bones that come down to you and regaling yourself with
hungry zest on such tough mallow-leaves--the wrappers of daintier fare--
as may escape the vigilance of those who sit above you. No slight is
wanting. You have not so much as an egg to call your own; for there is no
reason why you should expect to be treated in the same way as a stranger;
that would be absurd. The birds that fall to your lot are not like other
birds. Your neighbour gets some plump, luscious affair; you, a poor half-
chicken, or lean pigeon, an insult, a positive outrage in poultry. As
often as not, an extra guest appears unexpectedly, and the waiter solves
the difficulty by removing your share (with the whispered consolation
that you are 'one of the family'), and placing it before the new-comer.
When the joint, be it pork or venison, is brought in to be carved, let us
hope that you stand well with the carver, or you will receive a
Promethean helping of 'bones wrapped up in fat.' And the way in which a
dish is whisked past you, after remaining with your neighbour till he can
eat no more!--what free man would endure it, though he were as innocent
of gall as any stag? And I have said nothing yet of the wine. While the
other guests are drinking of some rare old vintage, you have vile thick
stuff, whose colour you must industriously conceal with the help of a