glasses with the effervescing beverage, which the waiter again
places on the tray, and politely serves to the denizens, in whose
glassy eyes, sallow faces, coarse, unbared arms and shoulders, is
written the tale of their misery. The judge drinks with the
courtesan, touches glasses with the gambler, bows in compliment to
the landlady, who reiterates that she keeps the most respectable
house and the choicest wine. The moralist shakes his head, and
declines.

And while a dozen voices are pronouncing her beverage excellent, she
turns suddenly and nervously to her massive, old-fashioned
side-board, of carved walnut, and from the numerous cut glass that
range grotesquely along its top, draws forth an aldermanic decanter,
much broken. Holding it up to the view of her votaries, and looking
upon it with feelings of regret, "that," she says, "is what I got,
not many nights since, for kindly admitting one-I don't know when I
did such a thing before, mind ye!--of the common sort of people. I
never have any other luck when I take pity on one who has got down
hill. I have often thought that the more kind I am the more
ungrateful they upon whom I lavish my favors get. You must treat the
world just as it treats you-you must."

To your simple question, reader, more simply advanced, she replies
coquettishly: "Now, on my word of honor, Tom Swiggs did that. And
the poor fellow-I call him poor fellow, because, thinking of what he
used to be, I can't help it-has not a cent to pay for his pranks
with. Bless you, (here Madame Flamingo waxes warm,) why I knew Tom
Swiggs years ago, when he wasn't what he is now! He was as dashing a
young buck then as you'd meet in the city; used to come here a
perfect gentleman; and I liked him, and he liked me, and he got to