"Oh, no, I didn't beg any," Ted answered cheerfully. "I just said, this house smells as if it was full of cookies. But what's that to me?"

   *    *    *

   Sometimes the use of a diplomatic method defeats its own purpose, as in the case of the old fellow who was enthusiastic in praise of the busy lawyer from whose office he had just come, after a purely social call.

   "That feller, for a busy man," he declared earnestly, "is one of the pleasantest chaps I ever did meet. Why, I dropped in on him jest to pass the time o' day this mornin', an' I hadn't been chattin' with 'im more'n five minutes before he'd told me three times to come and see 'im agin."

   *    *    *

   The lady of uncertain age simpered at the gentleman of about the same age who had offered her his seat in the car.

   "Why should you be so kind to me?" she gurgled.

   "My dear madam, because I myself have a mother and a wife and a daughter."

   *    *    *

   Diplomacy is shown inversely by the remark of the professor to the lady in this story.

   At a reception the woman chatted for some time with the distinguished man of learning, and displayed such intelligence that one of the listeners complimented her.

   "Oh, really," she said with a smile, "I've just been concealing my ignorance."

   The professor spoke gallantly.

   "Not at all, not at all, my dear madam! Quite the contrary, I do assure you."

   We are more particular nowadays about cleanliness than were those of a past generation. Charles Lamb, during a whist game, remarked to his partner:

   "Martin, if dirt were trumps, what a hand you'd have!"

   *    *    *

   The French aristocrats were not always conspicuously careful in their personal habits. A visitor to a Parisian

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