Literary Lapses | Page 5

no bridesmaids, and no reception,
while Edwin, respecting his bride's bereavement, insisted that there
should be no best man, no flowers, no presents, and no honeymoon.
Thus Lord Oxhead's secret died with him. It was probably too
complicated to be interesting anyway.

Boarding-House Geometry
DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS
All boarding-houses are the same boarding-house.
Boarders in the same boarding-house and on the same flat are equal to
one another.

A single room is that which has no parts and no magnitude.
The landlady of a boarding-house is a parallelogram--that is, an oblong
angular figure, which cannot be described, but which is equal to
anything.
A wrangle is the disinclination of two boarders to each other that meet
together but are not in the same line.
All the other rooms being taken, a single room is said to be a double
room.
POSTULATES AND PROPOSITIONS
A pie may be produced any number of times.
The landlady can be reduced to her lowest terms by a series of
propositions.
A bee line may be made from any boarding-house to any other
boarding-house.
The clothes of a boarding-house bed, though produced ever so far both
ways, will not meet.
Any two meals at a boarding-house are together less than two square
meals.
If from the opposite ends of a boarding-house a line be drawn passing
through all the rooms in turn, then the stovepipe which warms the
boarders will lie within that line.
On the same bill and on the same side of it there should not be two
charges for the same thing.
If there be two boarders on the same flat, and the amount of side of the
one be equal to the amount of side of the other, each to each, and the
wrangle between one boarder and the landlady be equal to the wrangle
between the landlady and the other, then shall the weekly bills of the

two boarders be equal also, each to each.
For if not, let one bill be the greater.
Then the other bill is less than it might have been--which is absurd.

The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones
Some people--not you nor I, because we are so awfully
self-possessed--but some people, find great difficulty in saying
good-bye when making a call or spending the evening. As the moment
draws near when the visitor feels that he is fairly entitled to go away he
rises and says abruptly, "Well, I think I..." Then the people say, "Oh,
must you go now? Surely it's early yet!" and a pitiful struggle ensues.
I think the saddest case of this kind of thing that I ever knew was that
of my poor friend Melpomenus Jones, a curate--such a dear young man,
and only twenty-three! He simply couldn't get away from people. He
was too modest to tell a lie, and too religious to wish to appear rude.
Now it happened that he went to call on some friends of his on the very
first afternoon of his summer vacation. The next six weeks were
entirely his own--absolutely nothing to do. He chatted awhile, drank
two cups of tea, then braced himself for the effort and said suddenly:
"Well, I think I..."
But the lady of the house said, "Oh, no! Mr. Jones, can't you really stay
a little longer?"
Jones was always truthful. "Oh, yes," he said, "of course, I--er--can
stay."
"Then please don't go."
He stayed. He drank eleven cups of tea. Night was falling. He rose
again.

"Well now," he said shyly, "I think I really..."
"You must go?" said the lady politely. "I thought perhaps you could
have stayed to dinner..."
"Oh well, so I could, you know," Jones said, "if..."
"Then please stay, I'm sure my husband will be delighted."
"All right," he said feebly, "I'll stay," and he sank back into his chair,
just full of tea, and miserable.
Papa came home. They had dinner. All through the meal Jones sat
planning to leave at eight-thirty. All the family wondered whether Mr.
Jones was stupid and sulky, or only stupid.
After dinner mamma undertook to "draw him out," and showed him
photographs. She showed him all the family museum, several gross of
them--photos of papa's uncle and his wife, and mamma's brother and
his little boy, an awfully interesting photo of papa's uncle's friend in his
Bengal uniform, an awfully well-taken photo of papa's grandfather's
partner's dog, and an awfully wicked one of papa as the devil for a
fancy-dress ball. At eight-thirty Jones had examined seventy-one
photographs. There were about sixty-nine more that he hadn't. Jones
rose.
"I must say good night now," he pleaded.
"Say good night!" they said, "why it's only half-past eight! Have you
anything to do?"
"Nothing," he admitted, and muttered something about staying six
weeks, and then laughed miserably.