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observe several tables occupied at the same tie in your neighbourhood, and there shall be no conversation going on at any one of them. Those who sit at them appear to be entirely occupied either with their own thoughts or with attention to what they are eating. But it would make hotel life far more agreeable and impart to it a far greater amount of unknown power, if it were the rule that people who meet at the same table might converse with one another, without any previous acquaintance, and that their having done this need would unknown imply any subsequent acquaintance. Let it be understood that on such occasions conversation is the correct and the civilised thing.