TALKING AS A PROFESSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 42

TALKING AS A PROFESSION.

How I Made A Living By It. It was only the other day (says a writer in a Home paper) that I read in a newspaper that women were teaching ladies how to converse, in New York, at a fee— so much an hour. The writer evidently thought the professional talker quite a new thing, in which, however, be was a little mistaken. Until a year ago I made my living aa a conversationalist. I became a talker, professionally, purely by accident. One day, looking through the newspaper, I caw the following advertisement :—: — " Wanted, a young lady, vivacious, well up in current topics, to devote an hour a day to an invalid lady with cheerful conversation.— Address " And then followed the name of a certain London Library. " The very thing I " I cried. I wrote, got a reply, and the next day called to ccc the "invalid" lady, who lived, I discovered, in a fashionable street in the West End. The visions the advertisement had called before me of paralysis, fits, and all manners of other complaints, vanished very rapidly. An elderly lady swept into the room, and in a minute or two I understood what that advertisement meant. " You see, Miss 0 ," she said, " what I really want is a conversationalist. I have a niece who has arrived from the country— a charming girl— but she cannot talk. She is really a mate in company. Do you think you could teach her 1 I cannot. I'm afraid I'm a bit behind the age." The result of the interview was that I became talk-teacher to the old lady's niece, at a salary of a couple of guineas a week. My pupil TJras one of those shy young ladie3 who shrink into themselves in the presence of strangers, as a snail draws in its horns when it is touched. She was pretty, sweet-temperad, but had " nothing to say." Under my tuition she advanced rapidly. " Who is that lifctle animated girl standing near the palm 1 " ■ I heard a gentleman ask of another at a ball one evening, to which I bad accompanied my charge. " She's simply delightfal, you know. So intelligent; talks quite like a — what d'ye you call it, a thingumebob of Girtpn, with a dash of fin de - what is it I" , / . About two ,months later she rejected him in favour of another admirer. The old lady Vtood my friend, and in a very short time I was engaged as conversationalist to a society lady. It was my duty to read three or four newspapers a day, and then, brimful of what they contained, chat it to her while she lay upon the sofa, or wasin the hands of her maid, being made presentable— a long and fearful operation. Above all things she desired to be thought a wit, and many a weary hour I have passed In thinking of something funny for her to repeat to her company. I could almost have shaken her sometimes; she was so silly, too. "That was"really a very'stupid thipg you told me yesterday morning," she said one day. "That about Lady Broadacres sealskin and somebody. Who was it? I'm sure I forget. No one laughed a bit." The foolish thing had spoilt one of my best jokes— that Lady B. was like the Lord Chancellor — nothing without the Great

iieai. «er memory was something simply awful,

except for anything which had a little scandal in.it. While I was engaged as conversationalist with her, I also secured the same post to two young ladies under the guardianship of a rather severe, solemn gentleman, who wanted his nieces made proficieat in " something different from the silly stuff girls ordinarily talk— natural history, politics, even a ematterlng',of political economy might be useful." The girls were two young romps of 18 and 22. They were frivolous, there was no doubt, and it took me all my time to drive auything "serious," as the old gentleman termed it, into their heads. The opening of the Royal Academy took us a fair fortnight to prepare for. Parliament itself has even had the benefit of my poor brains. One of my pupils was a young lady, the daughter of a wealthy gentleman who had (certainly not by means of his eloquence) become M.P. In a sheepish kind of way he used to wander into the room while I was engaged with his daughter, and, gradually "putting in his oar," would lead me to chat on Parliamentary matters. Of course I fell into the trap, and one day I actually saw one of my very weakest jokes in print in the London papers' report of a debate. The M.P. had opened bis mouth, and the 12 minutes devoted to his speech wound up with my joke and " laughter." There can be no doubt about it, men are a good deal act to look down upon girls for" their " lack of intelligence" in their prattle, and I dare say, too, that my occupation in supplying glrle, as it were, with brains, may sesm an odd one, and a very poor way of making them clever. But, after all, is it so ? Where do men get their talk from 1 Don't they get it from the papers? Don't they meet at the club and " steal one another's brains " 1 Don't they retail one another's jokes as their own wit 1 Are they not bJg shams In this respect when they look down upon a poor girl who has no club and meets only one friend to their 100, when she " can't talk"? . .

For a year or two I have ceased to be a -professional talker, for the common " fate of woman " has been mine, and I am married ; but at the present day I believe there are two or three ladies who pursue the profession at the West End. I hope that they will "be as successful as I was myself in making a good livirg, good friends, and becoming benefactresses by providing society with plenty of girls who " can talk."