The trouble will be to get
him in the right place before firing. But I can see that a lot of
fun can be got out of a wasp drive. We shall stand on the edge of
the marmalade while the beaters go through it, and, given
sufficient guns, there will not be many insects to escape. A
loader to clean the weapon at regular intervals will be a
necessity.
Yet I am afraid that society will look down upon the wasp gun.
Anything useful and handy is always barred by the best people. I
can imagine a bounder being described as "the sort of person who
uses a wasp gun instead of a teaspoon." As we all know, a hat-
guard is the mark of a very low fellow. I suppose the idea is
that you and I, being so dashed rich, do not much mind if our
straw hat does blow off into the Serpentine; it is only the poor
wretch of a clerk, unable to afford a new one every day, who must
take precautions against losing his first. Yet how neat, how
useful, is the hat-guard. With what pride its inventor must have
given birth to it. Probably he expected a statue at the corner of
Cromwell Road, fitting reward for a public benefactor. He did not
understand that, since his invention was useful, it was probably
bad form.
Consider, again, the Richard or "dicky." Could there be anything
neater or more dressy, anything more thoroughly useful? Yet you
and I scorn to wear one. I remember a terrible situation in a
story by Mr.
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