14 SEPTEMBER 1895, Page 17

[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—If you admit the following " owre true tale" to be an illustration of absent-mindedness, I think it will be accepted as the culminating record. A gentleman returned this answer to a bookseller who had sent in his account for a book, some- time before delivered :—" I never ordered the book. If I did, you did not send it. If you sent it, I never got it. If I got it, I paid for it. If I didn't, I won't."—I am, Sir, &c.,