that the men, and I do believe the horses, burst out laughing.

He started back-choking almost, and recovered himself only to vent such a storm of oaths and curses, that I was compelled to request Capt. Rawdon (the captain on duty) to take note of his lordship's words; and unluckily could not help adding a question which settled my business. « You were good enough,» I said, «to ask me, my lord, from what blackguard I got my pipe; might I ask from what blackguard you learned your language? »

This was quite enough. Had I said «from what gentleman did your lordship learn your language?» the point would have been quite as good, and my Lord Martingale would have suffered in my place as it was, I was so strongly recommended to sell out by his Royal Highness the Commander-inchief, that, being of a good-natured disposition, never knowing how to refuse a friend, I at once threw up my hopes of military distinction, and retired into civil life.

My lord was kind enough to meet me afterwards, in a field on the Glanmire Road, where he put a ball into my leg. This I returned to him some years later with about twentythree others-black ones-when he came to be balloted for at a club, of which I have the honour to be a member.

Thus by the indulgence of a simple and harmless propensity, of a propensity which can inflict an injury upon no person or thing except the coat and the person of him who indulges in it, of a custom which far from leading a man into any wickedness or dissipation to which youth is subject, but, on the contrary, begets only benevolent silence and thoughtful good-humoured observation, I found at the age of twenty, all my prospects in life destroyed. I cared not for woman in those days; the calm smoker has a sweet companion in his pipe I did not drink immoderately of wine; for though a friend to trifling potations, to excessively strong drinks tobacco is abhorrent; I never thought of gambling, for the lover of the pipe has no need of such excitement; but I was considered a monster of dissipation in my family, and bade fair to come to ruin.

:

« Look at George,» my mother-in-law said to the genteel and correct young Flintskinners; he entered the world with every prospect in life, and see in what an abyss of degradation his fatal habits have plunged him! At school he was flogged and disgraced, he was disgraced and rusticated at the university, he was disgraced and expelled from the army. He might have had the living of Boodle (her ladyship gave it to one of her nephews), but he would not take his degree; his papa would have purchased him a troop-nay, a lieutenant-colonelcy some day, but for his fatal excesses. And now as long as my dear husband will listen to the voice of a wife who adores him-never, never shall he spend a shilling upon so worthless a young man. He has a small income from his mother (I cannot but think that the first Lady Fitz-Boodle was a weak and misguided person); let him live upon his mean pittance as he can, and I heartily pray we may not hear of him in gaol!"

My brother, after he came to the estate, married the ninth daughter of our neighbour, Sir John Spreadeagle and Boodle Hall has seen a new little Fitz-Boodle with every succeeding spring. The dowager retired to Scotland with a large jointure and a wondrous heap of savings. Lady Fitz is a good creature, but she thinks me something diabolical, trembles when she sees me, and gathers all her children about her. rushes into the nursery whenever I pay that little seminary a visit, and actually slapped poor little Frank's ears one day when I was teaching him to ride upon the back of a Newfoundland dog.

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"George, said my brother to me the last time I paid him a visit at the old hall, don't be angry, my dear fellow, but Maria is in a-hum-in a delicate situation, expecting herhum-(the eleventh)-and do you know you frighten her? It was but yesterday you met her in the Rookery, you were smoking that enormous German pipe, and when she came in she had an hysterical seizure, and Drench says that in her situation it's dangerous; and I say, George, if you go to town you'll find a couple of hundred at your banker's; » and with

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26

this the poor fellow shook me by the hand and called for a fresh bottle of claret.

Since then he told he, with many hesitations, that my room at Boodle Hall had been made into a second nursery. I see my sister-in-law in London twice or thrice in the season, and the little people, who have almost forgotten to call me Uncle George.

It's hard, too, for I am a lonely man after all, and my heart yearns to them. The other day I smuggled a couple of them into my chambers, and had a little feast of cream and strawberries to welcome them. But it had like to have cost the nursery-maid (a Swiss girl that Fitz-Boodle hired somewhere in his travels) her place. My step-mamma, who happened to be in town, came flying down in her chariot, pounced upon the poor thing and the children in the midst of the entertainment; and when I asked her, with rather a bad grace to be sure, to take a chair and a share of the feast,

"

Mr. Fitz-Boodle," said she, I am not accustomed to sit down in a place that smells of tobacco like an ale-house-an ale-house inhabited by a serpent, sir! A serpent! do you understand me? who carries his poison into his brother's own house, and purshues his eenfamous designs before his brother's own children. Put on Miss Maria's bonnet this instant. Mamsell, ontondy-voo? Metty le bonny à mamsell; and I shall take care, mamsell, that you return to Switzerland to-morrow. I've no doubt you are a relation of Courvoisier : oui, oui, Courvoisier; vous comprenny? and you shall certainly be sent back to your friends. »

With this speech, and with the children and their maid sobbing before her, my lady retired; but for once my sisterin-law was on my side, not liking the meddlement of the elder lady.

I know, then, that from indulging in that simple habit of smoking, I have gained among the ladies a dreadful reputation. I see that they look coolly upon me, and darkly at their husbands when they arrive at home in my company. Men, 1 observe, in consequence, ask me to dine much oftener at the club, or the Star and Garter at Richmond, or at Lovegrove's,

than in their own houses; and with this sort of arrangement I am fain to acquiesce; for, as I said before, I am of an easy temper, and can at any rate take my cigar-case out after dinner at Blackwall, when my lady or the duchess are not by. I know, of course, the best men in town; and as for ladies' society, not having it (for I will have none of your pseudoladies, such as sometimes honour bachelors' parties,-actresses, couturières, opera-dancers, and so forth)—as for ladies' society, I say, I cry pish! 't is not worth the trouble of the complimenting, and the bother of pumps and black silk stockings.

Let any man remember what ladies' society was when he had an opportunity of seeing them among themselves, as What-d'ye call'em does in the Thesmophoriazu-(I beg pardon, I was on the verge of a classical allusion, which I abominate)-I mean at that period of his life when the intellect is pretty acute, though the body is small-namely, when a young gentleman is about eleven years of age, dining at his father's table during the holydays, and is requested by his papa to quit the dinner-table when the ladies retire from it.

Corbleu! I recollect their whole talk as well as if it had been whispered but yesterday; and can see, after a long dinner, the yellow summer sun throwing long shadows over the lawn before the dining-room windows, my poor mother and her company of ladies sailing away to the music-room in old Boodle Hall. The Countess Dawdley was the great Lady in our county,-a portly lady who used to love crimson satin in those days, and birds of paradise. She was flaxenhaired, and the Regent once said she resembled one of King Charles's beauties.

When Sir John Todcaster used to begin his famous story of the exciseman (I shall not tell it here, for very good reasons), my poor mother used to turn to Lady Dawdley, and give that mystic signal at which all females rise from their chairs. Tufthunt the curate would spring from his seat, and be sure to be the first to open the door for the retreating ladies; and my brother Tom and I, though remaining stoutly in our places, were were speedily ejected from them by the governor's invariable remark, Tom and George, if

M

you

have had quite enough wine,, you had better go and join your mamma. » Yonder she marches, Heaven bless her! through the old oak hall (how long the shadows of the antlers are on the wainscot, and the armour of Rollo Fitz-Boodle looks in the sunset as if it were emblazoned with rubies)-yonder she marches, stately and tall, in her invariable pearl-coloured tabinet, followed by Lady Dawdley, blazing like a flamingo; next comes Lady Emily Tufthunt (she was Lady Emily Skinflinter), who will not for all the world take precedence of rich, vulgar, kind, good-humoured Mrs. Colonel Grogwater, as she would be called, with a yellow little husband from Madras, who first taught me to drink sangaree. He was a new arrival in our county, but paid nobly to the hounds, and occupied hospitably a house which was always famous for its hospitality-Sievely Hall (poor Bob Cullender ran through seven thousand a-year before he was thirty years old). Once when I was a lad, Colonel Grogwater gave me two gold mohurs out of his desk for whist-markers, and I'm sorry to say I ran up from Eton and sold them both for seventy-three shillings at a shop in Cornhill. But to return to the ladies who are all this while kept waiting in the hall, and to their usual conversation after dinner. Can any man forget how miserably flat it was? trons sit on sofas and talk in a subdued voice :-

Five ma

My dear Lady Dawdley, do

tell me about poor Susan Tuckett. »

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Second Lady. All three children are perfectly well, and I assure you as fine babies as I ever saw in my life. I made her give them Daffy's Elixir the first day; and it was the greatest mercy that I had some of Frederick's baby-clothes by me; for you know I had provided Susan with sets for one only, and really

Third Lady. "Of course one couldn't; and for my part I think your ladyship is a great deal too kind to these people. A little gardener's boy dressed in Lord Dawdley's frocks, indeed! I recollect that one at his christening had the sweetest lace in the world! »