"
"My dear," laughed the Old Maid, "your anecdotal method is becoming
as jerky as a cinematograph."
"I have noticed it myself," replied the Woman of the World; "I try
to get in too much."
"The art of the raconteur," observed the Philosopher, "consists in
avoiding the unessential. I have a friend who never yet to my
knowledge reached the end of a story. It is intensely unimportant
whether the name of the man who said the thing or did the deed be
Brown or Jones or Robinson. But she will worry herself into a fever
trying to recollect. 'Dear, dear me!' she will leave off to
exclaim; 'I know his name so well. How stupid of me!' She will
tell you why she ought to recollect his name, how she always has
recollected his name till this precise moment. She will appeal to
half the people in the room to help her. It is hopeless to try and
induce her to proceed, the idea has taken possession of her mind.
After a world of unnecessary trouble she recollects that it was
Tomkins, and is delighted; only to be plunged again into despair on
discovery that she has forgotten his address. This makes her so
ashamed of herself she declines to continue, and full of self-
reproach she retires to her own room.
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