_Question_. You properly attended the Congress last week?
_Answer_. Certainly, by wearing a small brooch pinned on the flap of
my coat.
_Q._ What effect had this on the cabmen?
_A._ To cause them to charge me just double the customary fares.
_Q._ Did you go to the Inaugural Meeting?
_A._ Of course, but as it was so crowded, I could get no further than
the door.
_Q._ Did you hear the speech of the Prince of WALES?
_A._ Unfortunately not; but I had the advantage of seeing the top of
his Royal Highness's head.
_Q._ Did you go to the _Soirée_ in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the Hall
of the Royal College of Surgeons?
_A._ I did, and was much amused at finding myself drinking claret cup
in the museum devoted to skeletons.
_Q._ Did you go to the reception at Guildhall?
_A._ Certainly, and was greatly gratified at the amusements supplied
to the Lord Mayor's guests.
_Q._ What were those amusements?
_A._ So far as I could see, the Band of the Grenadier Guards,
conducted by Lieut. DAN GODFREY in undress uniform, playing before Sir
JOSEPH SAVORY, Bart.; and some charters under a glass case.
_Q._ Was that all?
_A._ Well, I heard some harps, and then of course there were the Lord
Mayor's trumpeters.
_Q._ Did you get your hat and coat in comfort?
_A._ In great comfort--after I had fought like a wild beast with
other wild beasts for an hour and a half to get up to the place of
distribution.
_Q._ Was this part of the programme badly managed?
_A._ It was not managed at all. The City Authorities had not even had
the sense to put the numbers available at each counter _en évidence_.
_Q._ Did you derive any linguistic learning from this struggle?
_A._ Certainly. I heard bad language in sixteen different tongues.
_Q._ And what (as a connoisseur) did you think of the oaths?
_A._ That none were comparable to that English expletive which is
equally suggestive of a barrier in a river, the mother of a lamb, and
the observations of an angry man.
_Q._ Did you go anywhere else?
_A._ The entertainments I attended were so numerous that it is
impossible to remember a tithe of them.
_Q._ And what did you do about Science?
_A._ Left it for discussion until the meeting of the Congress to be
held next year!
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[Illustration: TWO HEADS BETTER THAN ONE.
_An Optical Illusion in a Lady's Orchestra._]
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