“The fault is with the potato, not with us,” said Gorworth; “we are not in the least interested in it because it is not in the least interesting. The men you go up in the train with every day are just in the same case as yourself; their lives are commonplace and not very interesting to themselves, and they certainly are not going to wax enthusiastic over the commonplace events in other men’s lives. Tell them something startling, dramatic, piquant that has happened to yourself or to someone in your family, and you will capture their interest at once. They will talk about you with a certain personal pride to all their acquaintances. ‘Man I know intimately, fellow called Blenkinthrope, lives down my way, had two of his fingers clawed clean off by a lobster he was carrying home to supper. Doctor says entire hand may have to come off.’ Now that is conversation of a very high order. But imagine walking into a tennis club with the remark: ‘I know a man who has grown a potato weighing two and a quarter pounds.’ ”

“But hang it all, my dear fellow,” said Blenkinthrope impatiently, “haven’t I just told you that nothing of a remarkable nature ever happens to me?”