If only the bed-post or the water-jug could have taken my place and gone to the party instead of me, life would have been simpler.

The bed-post and the water-jug, in its neat white bow, looked like a gentleman--the fashionable novelist's idea of a gentleman.

Upon myself the result was otherwise, suggesting always a feeble attempt at suicide by strangulation.

I could never understand how it was done.

There were moments when it flashed across me that the secret lay in being able to turn one's self inside out, coming up with one's arms and legs the other way round.