REWARDS TO RACONTEURS.--I am considered a first-rate storyteller and
conversationalist; indeed, few dinner parties (at Lower Tooting) can
get on without me. Do you think I could get elected to the Reform Club
without paying the entrance subscription? I see that some members of
that club have been left L2000 each as a reward for "brightening
the evenings" of a deceased member, and I feel certain that had the
testator known _me_, he would have increased my legacy to L4000 at
least. My sparkling powers of conversation are often called a "gift,"
but I don't want them to be a gift if I could get anything for them.