then a Methodist parson; then a builder of houses; and now be has dashed
suddenly up to London, rushed into the clubs, mounted a wig, studied an
ogle, and walks about the Opera House swinging a cane, and, at the age of
fifty-six, punching young minors in the side, and saying tremulously,
"_We_ young fellows!"

"He hires pages to come to him in the Park with three-cornered notes,"
said Fanny, "he opens each with affected nonchalance; looks full at the
bearer; and cries aloud-'Tell your mistress I cannot refuse her:'--then
canters off, with the air of a man persecuted to death!"

"But did you see what an immense pair of whiskers Chester has mounted?"

"Yes," answered a Mr. De Lacy; "A---- says he has cultivated them in order
to 'plant out' his ugliness."

"But vy _you_ no talk, Monsieur de Dauphin?" said the Linettini gently,
turning to Percy; "you ver silent."

"Unhappily, I have been so long out of town that these anecdotes of the
day are caviare to me."

"But so," cried Saville, "would a volume of French Memoirs be to any one
that took it up for the first time; yet the French Memoirs amuse one
exactly as much as if one had lived with the persons written of. Now that
ought to be the case with conversations upon persons. I flatter myself,
Fanny, that you and I hit off characters so well by a word or two, that no
one who hears us wants to know anything more about them."

"I believe you," said Godolphin; "and that is the reason you never talk of