"
My friend is an admitted misanthrope, as I have explained; but one
cannot dismiss him as altogether unjust. That there is a certain
mystery about Society's craving for Society must be admitted. I
stood one evening trying to force my way into the supper room of a
house in Berkeley Square. A lady, hot and weary, a few yards in
front of me was struggling to the same goal.
"Why," remarked she to her companion, "why do we come to these
places, and fight like a Bank Holiday crowd for eighteenpenny-worth
of food?"
"We come here," replied the man, whom I judged to be a philosopher,
"to say we've been here."
I met A----- the other evening, and asked him to dine with me on
Monday. I don't know why I ask A----- to dine with me, but about
once a month I do. He is an uninteresting man.
"I can't," he said, "I've got to go to the B-----s'; confounded
nuisance, it will be infernally dull."
"Why go?" I asked.
"I really don't know," he replied.
A little later B----- met me, and asked me to dine with him on
Monday.
"I can't," I answered, "some friends are coming to us that evening.
It's a duty dinner, you know the sort of thing."
"I wish you could have managed it," he said, "I shall have no one to
talk to.
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