Before you bombard with the china and charge with the cutlery, know that I have taken counsel with my peers. My topic I put to them with a plea that they give me a judgment of my theme, or some notion of the tack I should take. “Singularly barren, your theme,” came the first response. Said the next: “You ask for a tack; I suggest a sledge hammer.” Awesome, though, was this: “If you say what ought to be said, you will be crucified; and if you don’t, can you be pleased with that?” “If you can do it undetected, slide off the subject,” advised a wily one. Another, though he discounted them, had heard rumbles, womblings I take to spring from the viscera, not the head. The secretaries of our academy assure me, however, that these infirmities, already affecting the skin, often break out in a rash upon their records.