The more I feel confident that I know them, the
more it turns out that I don't. It is an awful thing to stop a hansom
in the street, thinking that its occupant is your oldest College
friend, and to discover that he is a perfect stranger, and in a great
hurry. Private Views are my particular abomination. At one such show,
seven ladies, all very handsome and peculiarly attired, addressed me
in the most friendly manner, calling me by my name. They cannot have
taken me for either of my Doubles,--one is a Cabinet Minister, one is
a dentist,--for they knew my name, The MACDUFFER of Duff. Yet I had
not then, nor have I now, the faintest idea who any one of the seven
was. My belief is that it was done for a bet. The worst of it is when,
after about five minutes, I think I have a line as to who my companion
really is, then, my intelligent features lighting up, I make some
remark which ruins everything, congratulate a stockbroker on getting
his step, or an unmarried lady on the success of her son in the Indian
Civil Service examination.
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