forgot, on account of the service rendered to him, the dreadful reputation for profligacy which I enjoyed in the country. Well, to cut a long story short, which is told here merely for the moral at the end of it, I should have been Fitz-Boodle M'Alister at this minute most probably, and master of four thousand a-year, but for the fatal cigar-box. I bear Mary no malice in saying that she was a high-spirited little girl, loving, before all things, her own way; nay, perhaps, I do not from long habit and indulgence in tobacco-smoking appreciate the delicacy of female organisations, which were oftentimes most painfully affected by it. She was a keen-sighted little person, and soon found that the world had belied poor George FitzBoodle, who, instead of being the cunning monster people supposed him to be, was a simple, reckless, good-humoured, honest fellow, marvellously addicted to smoking, idleness, and telling the truth. She called me Orson, and I was happy enough on the 14th February, in the year 18+ ( it's of no consequence), to send her such a pretty little copy of verses about Orson and Valentine, in which the rude habits of the savage man were shewn to be overcome by the polished graces of his kind and brilliant conqueror, that she was fairly overcome, and said to me, « George Fitz-Boodle, if you give up • smoking for a year I will marry you. ». I swore I would, of course, and went home and flung four pounds of Hudson's cigars, two meerschaum pipes that had cost me ten guineas at the establishment of Mr. Gattiebat Oxford, a tobacco-bag that Lady Fitz-Boodle had given me before her marriage with my father (it was the only present that I ever had from her or any member of the Skinflinter family), and some choice packets of Varinas and Syrian, into the lake in Boodle Park. The weapon amongst them all which I most regretted was will it be believed?the little black doodheen which had been the cause of the quarrel between Lord Martingale and me. However, it went along with the others. I would not allow my groom to have so much as a cigar, lest I should be tempted hereafter; and the consequence was that a few days after, many fat carps and tenches in the lake (I must confess 't was no bigger than a pond) nib -- bled at the tobacco, and came floating on their backs on the top of the water quite intoxicated. My conversion made some; noise in the country, being emphasized, as it were, by this fact of the fish, I can't tell you with what pangs I kept my resolution; but keep it I did for some time. With so much beauty and wealth, Mary M'Alister had of course many suitors, and among them was the young Lord, Dawdley, whose mamma has previously been described in her. gown of red satin. As I used to thrash Dawdley at school, I thrashed him in after life in love, and he put up with his disappointment pretty well, and came after a while and shook hands with me, telling me of the bets that there were in the county where the whole story was known, for and against me. For the fact is, as I must own, that Mary M'Alister, the queerest, frankest of women, made no secret of the agreement, or the cause of it. I did not care a penny for Orson," she said, « but he would go on writing me such dear pretty verses that at last I couldn't help saying yes. But if he breaks his promise to me, I declare upon my honour, I'll break mine, and nobody's heart will be broken either. » This was the perfect fact, as I must confess, and I declare that it was only because she amused me and delighted me, and provoked me and made me laugh very much, and because, no doubt, she was very rich, that I had any attachment for her. For heaven's sake, George, my father said to me, as I quitted home to follow my beloved to London, «remember that you are a younger brother and have a lovely girl and four thousand a-year within a year's reach of you. Smoke as much as you like, my boy, after marriage, added the old gentleman, knowingly (as if he, honest soul, after his second marriage, dared drink an extra pint of wine without my lady's permission!) « but eschew the tobacco-shops till then. » " I went to London resolving to act upon the paternal advice, and oh how I longed for the day when I should be married, vowing in my secret soul that I would light a cigar as I walked out of St. George's, Hanover Square. Well, I came to London, and so carefully avoided smoking, that I would not even go into Hudson's shop to pay his bill, and as smoking was not the fashion then among young men as (thank Heaven!) it is now, I had not many temptations from my friends' example at the clubs or elsewhere; only little Dawdley began to smoke as if to spite me.. He had never done so before, but confessed the rascal! that he enjoyed a cigar now, if it were but to mortify me. But I took to other and more dangerous excitements, and upon the nights when not in attendance upon Mary M'Alister, might be found in very dangerous proximity to a polished mahogany table, round which claret-bottles circulated a great deal too often, or, worse still, to a table covered with green cloth and ornamented with a couple of wax-candles and a couple of packs of cards, and four gentlemen playing the enticing game of whist. Likewise, I came to carry a snuff-box, and to consume in secret huge quantities of rappee. For ladies' society I was even then disinclined, hating and despising small-talk, and dancing, and hot routs, and vulgar scrambles for suppers. I never could understand the pleasure of acting the part of lackey to a dowager, and standing behind her chair, or bustling through the crowd for her carriage. I always found an opera too long by two acts, and have repeatedly fallen asleep in the presence of Mary M'Alister herself, sitting at the back of the box shaded by the huge beret of her old aunt, Lady Betty Plumduff; and many a time has Dawdley, with Miss M'Alister on his arm, wakened me up at the close of the entertainment in time to offer my hand to Lady Betty, and lead the ladies to their carriage. If I attended her occasionally to any ball or party of pleasure, I went, it must be confessed, with clumsy, ill-disguised illhumour. Good Heavens!» have I often and often thought in the midst of a song, or the very thick of a ball-room, people prefer this to a book and a sofa, and a dear, dear cigar-box from thy stores, O charming Mariana Woodville!" Deprived of my favourite plant, I grew sick in mind and body, moody, sarcastic, and discontented. « can Such a state of things could not long continue, nor could Miss M'Alister continue to have much attachment for such a sullen, ill-conditioned creature as I then was. She used to make me wild with her wit and her sarcasm, nor have I ever possessed the readiness to parry or reply to those fine points of woman's wit, and she treated me the more mercilessly as she saw that I could not resist her. Well; the polite reader must remember a great fête that was given at B House, some years back, in honour of his Highness the Hereditary Prince of Kalbsbraten-Pumpernickel, who was then in London on a visit to his illustrious relatives. It was a fancy ball, and the poems of Scott being at that time all the fashion, Mary was to appear in the character of the Lady of the Lake, old M'Alister making a very tall and severe-looking harper; Dawdley, a most insignificant Fitzjames, and your humble servant a stalwart and manly Roderick Dhu. We were to meet at BHouse, at twelve o'clock, and as I had no fancy to drive through the town in my cab dressed in a kilt and philibeg, I agreed to take a seat in Dawdley's carriage, and to dress at his house in May Fair. At eleven I left a very pleasant bachelors' party, growling to quit them and the honest, jovial claret-bottle, in order to scrape and cut capers like a harlequin from the theatre. When I arrived at Dawdley's, I mounted to a dressing-room, and began to array myself in my cursed costume. The art of costuming was by no means so well understood in those days as it has been since, and mine was out of all correctness. I was made to sport an enormous plume of black ostrich feathers, such as never was worn by any Highland chief, and had a huge tiger-skin sporran to dangle like an apron before innumerable yards of plaid petticoat. The Tartan cloak was outrageously hot and voluminous it was the dog-days, and all these things I was condemned to wear in the midst of a crowd of a thousand people! : Dawdley sent up word as I was dressing, that his dress had not arrived, and he took my cab, and drove off in a rage to his tailor. There was no hurry, I thought, to make a fool of myself; so having put on a pair of plaid trews, and very neat pumps with shoe-buckles, my courage failed me as to the rest of the dress, and taking down one of his dressing-gowns, I went down-stairs to the study, to wait until he should arrive. The windows of the pretty room were open, and a snug sofa, with innumerable cushions, drawn towards one of them. A great tranquil moon was staring into the chamber, in which stood, amidst books and all sorts of bachelors' lumber, a silver tray with a couple of tall Venice glasses, and a bottle of Maraschino bound with straw. I can see now the twinkle of the liquor in the moonshine, as I poured it into the glass; and I swallowed two or three little cups of it, for my spirits were downcast. Close to the tray of Maraschino stood-must I say it? a box, a mere box of cedar, bound rudely together with pink paper, branded with the name of « HUDSON» on the side, and bearing on the cover the arms of Spain. I thought I would just take up the box, and look in it. K Ah, Heaven! there they were a hundred and fifty of them, in calm, comfortable rows, lovingly side by side, they lay with the great moon shining down upon them thin at the tip, full in the waist, elegantly round and full, a little spot Kere and there shining upon them-beauty-spots upon the cheek of Silva. The house was quite quiet. Dawdley always smoked in his room;-I had not smoked for four months and eleven days. When Lord Dawdley came into the study, he did not make any remarks; and, oh, how easy my heart felt! He was dressed in his green and boots, after Westall's picture, correctly. It's time to be off, George," said he; « they told me you were dressed long ago. Come up, my man, and get ready. » I rushed up into the dressing-room, and madly dashed my head and arms into a pool of eau de Cologne. I drank, I believe, a tumblerfull of it. I called for my clothes, and, strange to say, they were gone. My servant brought them, however, saying that he had put them away-making some stupid excuse. I put them on not heeding them much, for I was half tipsy with the excitement of the ci-, of the smo |