--that most straitest sect of Protestants that would leave their whole
family to starve if the said family did anything 'improper'--may play
the deuce's own delight in her own bedroom, and need not be
'improper,' but she would look on herself as lost if she received a
visit from a man of her acquaintance in the aforesaid room. Thanks to
propriety, London and its inhabitants will be found petrified some of
these days."

"And to think that there are asses here in France that want to import
the solemn tomfoolery that the English keep up among themselves with
that admirable self-possession which you know!" added Blondet. "It is
enough to make any man shudder if he has seen the English at home, and
recollects the charming, gracious French manners. Sir Walter Scott was
afraid to paint women as they are for fear of being 'improper'; and at
the close of his life repented of the creation of the great character
of Effie in _The Heart of Midlothian_."

"Do you wish not to be 'improper' in England?" asked Bixiou,
addressing Finot.

"Well?"

"Go to the Tuileries and look at a figure there, something like a
fireman carved in marble ('Themistocles,' the statuary calls it), try
to walk like the Commandant's statue, and you will never be
'improper.' It was through strict observance of the great law of the
_im_proper that Godefroid's happiness became complete. There is the
story:

"Beaudenord had a tiger, not a 'groom,' as they write that know