The party is at the house of a man named Babbage. He is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. He is a great one for parties, and, as I cannot afford to give parties of my own, I am grateful to be invited – and a little flattered, to be sure, for one must be clever, beautiful or of rank to receive an invitation to a Babbage (as they call them). I was beautiful once – but that did not interest me. I believe I am clever. Babbage has invited me because one of the newspapers called him a Logarithmetical Frankenstein. I shall take the omnibus as far as I can and walk the remaining
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