Patent Anti-Bore

— How many of us would have to confess to being of that unfortunate class of persons who never know when to stop ? If we are making a call, we experience no difficulty until it comes to the final act of bringing our social venture gracefully to a close ; and then somehow our resources fail us. We can entertain or be entertained, but lack the firmness or insight to seize that happy moment of departure which to a quicker understanding would have seemed to be providentially pointed out.

Manifestly all men cannot be of that superior order of beings who, like the sun in Hood’s poem, “ never came an hour too soon,” and who never outstay their limit or overrun their time. Cool, precise individuals as they are, with an aptitude of rising to any demand, how one despairs of ever reaching their unerring sense of just the felicitous moment when another word would be too much, and when their prompt acceptance of this fact leaves in the mind of the hearer a blessed hunger for more ! Somehow, however, this practical result must come within the possibility of all men, and it is to make a suggestion in the line of some expedient to this end that this bit of confession is offered. Why should not inventive genius come to the relief of long-suffering humanity with some device by means of which the most obtuse caller or the speaker most interminable will be forcibly reminded of the rights of others and the general fitness of things ? A small portable indicator would answer the need, especially if it could be carried about the person, and were not observable in its action by others. It should be capable of being timed to suit any occasion when it is required, and by some decisive blow should leave no doubt in the mind of the unhappy delinquent that the hour has arrived when calling grows into a nuisance and talking becomes a bore. One of more than usual power and perhaps susceptible of almost cruel effects might be constructed for the incorrigible cases, the hardened wretches who now habitually abuse social privilege, and make even the services of religion a travesty. These would probably require something stunning to overcome that density of cuticle which ordinarily prevents yawns, sighs, coughs, clickings of watches, and general restlessness of person from making any impression. Let the invention, when, in the fullness of a time much hoped for, it shall come, be called The Patent Anti-Bore Time-Saving Machine, and let not the inventor doubt that he shall receive the unstinted gratitude of the race. It would certainly seem as if there remained no other equal opportunity for distinguished service and lasting glory.