A varied collection of comic essays and sketches that lampoon domestic routines, leisure pursuits, and literary pretensions. Contents include mock correspondences and household vignettes, satirical how-to pieces on watching sports, gardening, and games, playful opera and literary synopses, and short humorous items on animals, business, and public affairs. The voice mixes deadpan observation, absurd exaggeration, and parody to turn everyday situations into unexpected punch lines. Illustrated plates sporadically accompany the pieces, reinforcing the light, conversational pacing and the writer's taste for deflating solemnity through slyly contrived misunderstandings.