conversation, and talked about Lords, Dukes, Marquises, and Baronets, as if those dignitaries were our familiar friends.

"Lord Sextonbury," says I, 66 seems to have recovered her Ladyship's death. He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine at the Sarcophagus last night; weren't they, Wagley ?"

"Good fellow, the Duke," Wagley replied. "Pray Ma'am" (to Mrs. Chuff), "you who know the world and etiquette, will you tell me what a man ought to do in my case? Last June, His Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, Tom Smith, and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the odds against Daddylonglegs for the Derby-forty to one, in sovereigns only. His Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid me. Now, can I ask such a great man for a sovereign ?-One more lump of sugar, if you please, my dear Madam."

It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude the question, for it prostrated the whole worthy family among whom we were. They telegraphed each other with wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about the naval nobility grew quite faint: and kind little Mrs. Sackville became uneasy, and went up-stairs to look at the children—not at that young monster, Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the whiskey-and-water-but at a couple of little ones who had made their appearance at dessert, and of whom she and Sackville were the happy parents.

The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine was, that we proposed and got him elected as a member of the Sarcophagus Club.

It was not done without a deal of opposition-the secret having been whispered that the candidate was a coal-merchant. You may be sure some of the proud people and most of the parvenus of the Club were ready to black-ball him. We combated this opposition successfully, however. We pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold coals: we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good nature, and good behaviour; and Wagley went about on the day of election, describing with great eloquence, the action between the Pitchfork and the Furibonde, and the valour of Captain Maine, our friend's father. There was a slight mistake in the narrative; but we carried our man, with

only a trifling sprinkling of black beans in the boxes: Byles's, of course, who black-balls everybody: and Bung's, who looks down upon a coal-merchant, having himself lately retired from the wine trade.

Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the following circumstances :

:

He was showing the Club to his family. He had brought them thither in the light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door; with Mrs. Chuff's hobbadehoy footboy on the box, by the side of the flyman, in a sham livery. Nelson Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff (Mrs. Commodore Chuff we call her), were all there; the latter, of course, in the vermilion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing in comparison to the splendour of the Sarcophagus. The delighted Sackville Maine was pointing out the beauties of the place to them. It seemed as beautiful as Paradise to that little party.

The Sarcophagus displays every known variety of architecture and decoration. The great library is Elizabethan; the small library is pointed Gothic; the dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room has an Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called because the hideous ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis Quinze); the cortile, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over marble, maplewood, looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers writhe up the walls in every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every gentleman in Jullien's band playing with all his might, and each performing a different tune; the ornaments at our Club, the Sarcophagus, so bewilder and affect me. Dazzled with emotions which I cannot describe, and which she dared not reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed by her children and son-in-law, walked wondering amongst these blundering splendours.

In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, he threw a knowing,

VOL. I.

Y

killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to say, “Ain't I a fine fellow?" They thought so, I am sure.

"Who is that?" hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards off him at the other end of the room.

says Maine in a

“ "Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear? free and easy way to Mrs. Sackville; "all the magazines, you see-writing materials-new works-choice library, containing every work of importance-what have we here?—' Dugdale's Monasticon,' a most valuable, and I believe, entertaining book."

And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. Maine's inspection, he selected Volume VII., to which he was attracted by the singular fact, that a brass door-handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out a book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy housemaid's broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited-while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of laughter.

"That's the rummest book I ever saw," says Nelson. "I wish we'd no others at Merchant Tailors'."

"Hush, Nelson," cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the other magnificent apartments.

How they did admire the drawing-room hangings (pink and siver brocade, most excellent wear for London), and calculated the price per yard; and revelled on the luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable looking-glasses.

Pretty well to shave by, eh?" says Maine to his mother-inlaw. (He was getting more abominably conceited every minute.) "Get away, Sackville," says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, and spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look at herself; so did Mrs. Sackvillejust one, and I thought the glass reflected a very smiling, pretty

creature.

But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's their place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn it. What I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, is the Club men at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at his great person, and tightening his

coat to give himself a waist. Fred. Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the reflection of his white neck-cloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to be sure!

Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins thundering away as usual: they saw the readingrooms, and the rush for the evening papers; they saw the kitchens -those wonders of art-where the Chef was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten thousand shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly perfectly bewildered with pleasure. Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red tabinet.

"We have your favourite dinner," says she, in a timid voice; "won't you come, Sackville ?"

"I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear," Sackville replied. "Home, James." And he went up the steps of the Sarcophagus, and the pretty face looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CLUB SNOBS.

WHY-why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action, as to introduce young Sackville Maine into that odious Sarcophagus! Let our imprudence and his example be a warning to other gents.; let his fate and that of his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of his entering the Club were as follow:

One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of frivolity was that of smoking. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, are in the habit of indulging in this propensity up-stairs in the billiard-rooms of the Sarcophagus-and, partly to

make their acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law which I do not venture to describe. He then became a professed billiard-player, wasting hours upon hours at that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock in the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a forenoon, indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin of his health, and the neglect of his wife.

From billiards to whist is but a step-and when a man gets to whist and five pounds on the rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. How was the coal business to go on, and the connexion of the firm to be kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table?

Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville became ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval-and transported his family to Pimlico-where, though Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, was at first happy, as the quarter was elegant and near her Sovereign, poor little Laura and the children found a woeful difference. Where were her friends who came in with their work of a morning ?-At Kennington and in the vicinity of Clapham. Where were her children's little playmates?-On Kennington Common. The great thundering carriages that roared up and down the drab-coloured streets of the new quarter, contained no friends for the sociable little Laura. The children that paced the squares, attended by a Bonne or a prim governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, or played hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a difference at Church, too!-between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with open seats, service in sing-song-tapers-albssurplices-garlands and processions, and the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, attending St. Benedict's, were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. Chuff's boy, trembled