party of guests were assembled, the man exultingly shouted out
the Information which he was desperately afraid someone else might have
anticipated--"Sir Jams! Sir Jams! The Bushopp has got his situation!" The
sense of humour cherished by Dr Vernon seems to have been inherited by his
sons in a different guise. In two undated letters Marianne relates to her
brother:--


Here is an anecdote of your friend, the sailor, Mr Vernon, [25] who
has got some prize money. He was walking, I believe, a few days since
with a gentleman in the streets when they met two men who spoke to him
civilly and to whom he returned a very short answer. His companion
inquired who they were. He said--"Two men who came over in the ship
with me." "Then why were you so cold in your manner to them?" asked
his friend. "Why, my dear fellow, because they were convicts returned
from transportation!" was Vernon's answer.


_Undated._

Your ball appears to have been very gay, but you never named your
opinion of Miss Monckton. [26] I assure you her sisters at Harrogate
were quite belles, the gentlemen made Charades on them. I must close
my letter with a story of Mr Vernon, [27] told me by a gentleman we
met at Sir Francis Wood's.

At one of the Lichfield balls, he came in so late that everybody
inquired the reason. He said he had been waiting for his tailor while
he was sewing the buttons on his etceteras. Each of these buttons
contained the picture of a French beauty, and he had the tailor in his