LITMIR.BIZ

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says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. Must hunt, you know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't. Mess expenses enawmuth. Must dine at mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't a port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz, our Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction you know. At his own expense Fitzstultz altered the plumes in the men's caps (you called them shaving-brushes, Snob, my boy: most absurd and unjust that attack of yours, by the way); that altewation alone cotht him five hundred pound. The year befaw latht he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, and we're called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen uth on pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of envy when he thaw uth at Windthor. And you see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought Gules down with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling out, just to talk my mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told her that I was Fitzstultz's favourite of the whole regiment; and, Gad! she thinks the Horse Guards will give me my troop for nothing, and he humbugged the Governor that I was the greatest screw in the army. Ain't it a good dodge?'

      With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in the stables with Lord Gules, and make merry over the cattle there, under Stripes's superintendence. Young Ponto laughed with his friend, at the venerable four-wheeled cruelty-chaise; but seemed amazed that the latter should ridicule still more an ancient chariot of the build of 1824, emblazoned immensely with the arme of the Pontos and the Snaileys, from which latter distinguished family Mrs. Ponto issued.

      I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a rueful attitude of despondency, that I could not but remark it. 'Look at that!' says the poor fellow, handing me over a document. 'It's the second change in uniform since he's been in the army, and yet there's no extravagance about the lad. Lord Gules tells me he is the most careful youngster in the regiment, God bless him! But look at that! by heaven, Snob, look at that and say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the Bench?' He gave a sob as he handed me the paper across the table; and his old face, and his old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and his lean shanks, looked, as he spoke, more miserably haggard, bankrupt, and threadbare.

      LIEUT. WELLESLEY PONTO, 120TH QUEEN'S OWN PYEBALD HUSSARS, TO KNOPF AND STECKNADEL, CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. L. s. d Dress Jacket, richly laced with gold . 35 0 0 Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed with sable . . 60 0 0 Undress Jacket, trimmed with gold 15 15 0 Ditto Pelisse . . 30 0 0 Dress Pantaloons 12 0 0 Ditto Overalls, gold lace on sides. 6 6 0 Undress ditto ditto. 5 5 0 Blue Braided Frock 14 14 0 Forage Cap . . 3 3 0 Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and chain . . . 25 0 0 Gold Barrelled Sash 11 18 0 Sword . . 11 11 0 Ditto Belt and Sabretache .. 16 16 0 Pouch and Belt. 15 15 0 SwordKnot .. 1 4 0 Cloak . .. 13 13 0 Valise . .. 3 13 6 Regulation Saddle . 7 17 6 Ditto Bridle, complete . .. 10 10 0 A Dress Housing, complete .. 30 0 0 A pair of Pistols. 10 10 0 A Black Sheepskin, edged. . . 6 18 0 Total L347 9 0

      That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling Wellesley give a full, true, and particular account of everything that had taken place at Lord Fitzstultz's; how many servants waited at dinner; and how the Ladies Schneider dressed; and what his Royal Highness said when he came down to shoot; and who was there? "What a blessing that boy is to me!" said she, as my pimple-faced young friend moved off to resume smoking operations with Gules in the now vacant kitchen;--and poor Ponto's dreary and desperate look, shall I ever forget that?

      O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of sense in England! O you legislators about to assemble in Parliament! read over that tailor's bill above printed, read over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks and madman's tomfoolery--and say how are you ever to get rid of Snobbishness when society does so much for its education?

      Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle and breeches! Before George, I would rather be a Hottentot or a Highlander. We laugh at poor Jocko, the monkey, dancing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the flunkey, with his quivering calves and plush tights; or at the nigger Marquis of Marmalade, dressed out with sabre and epaulets, and giving himself the airs of a field-marshal. Lo! is not one of the Queen's Pyebalds, in full fig, as great and foolish a monster?

      CHAPTER XXX--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS

      At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens, when I was to be made acquainted with some of the 'county families' with whom only people of Ponto's rank condescended to associate. And now, although poor Ponto had just been so cruelly made to bleed on occasion of his son's new uniform, and though he was in the direst and most cut-throat spirits with an overdrawn account at the banker's, and other pressing evils of poverty; although a tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an awful parsimony presided generally at his table, yet the poor fellow was obliged to assume the most frank and jovial air of cordiality; and all the covers being removed from the hangings, and new dresses being procured for the young ladies, and the family plate being unlocked and displayed, the house and all within assumed a benevolent and festive appearance. The kitchen fires began to blaze, the good wine ascended from the cellar, a professed cook actually came over from Guttlebury to compile culinary abominations. Stripes was in a new coat, and so was Ponto, for a wonder, and Tummus's button-suit was worn EN PERMANENCE.

      And all this to show off the little lord, thinks I. All this in honour of a stupid little cigarrified Cornet of dragoons, who can barely write his name,--while an eminent and profound moralist like--somebody--is fobbed off with cold mutton and relays of pig. Well, well: a martyrdom of cold mutton is just bearable. I pardon Mrs. Ponto, from my heart I do, especially as I wouldn't turn out of the best bed-room, in spite of all her hints; but held my ground in the chintz tester, vowing that Lord Gules, as a young man, was quite small and hardy enough to make himself comfortable elsewhere.

      The great Ponto party was a very august one. The Hawbucks came in their family coach, with the blood-red band emblazoned all over it: and their man in yellow livery waited in country fashion at table, only to be exceeded in splendour by the Hipsleys, the opposition baronet, in light blue. The old Ladies Fitzague drove over in their little old chariot with the fat black horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman--(why are dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon after these personages had arrived, with their auburn fronts and red beaks and turbans, came the Honourable and Reverend Lionel Pettipois, who with General and Mrs. Sago formed the rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady Frederick Howlet were asked, but they have friends at Ivybush,' Mrs. Ponto told me; and that very morning, the Castlehaggards sent an excuse, as her ladyship had a return of the quinsy. Between ourselves, Lady Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes on when there is dinner at the Evergreens.

      If the keeping of polite company could make a woman happy, surely my kind hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day a happy woman. Every person present (except the unlucky impostor who pretended to a connexion with the Snobbington Family, and General Sago, who had brought home I don't know how many lacs of rupees from India,) was related to the Peerage or the Baronetage. Mrs. P. had her heart's desire. If she had been an Earl's daughter herself could she have expected better company?--and her family were in the oil-trade at Bristol, as all her friends very well know.

      What I complained of in my heart was not the dining--which, for this once, was plentiful and comfortable enough--but the prodigious dulness of the talking part of the entertainment. O my beloved brother Snobs of the City, if we love each other no better than our country brethren, at least we amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are not called upon to go ten miles to do it!

      For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, and the Hawbucks ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens; and were magnates in two different divisions of the county of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, who is an old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show his contempt for Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and rich. Hawbuck, on his part, gives himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon the Pontos as little better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'I hope will leave something to her god-daughter--my second girl--we've all of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking her physic.'

      Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a medical, and the second a literary turn. I am inclined to believe the former had a wet COMPRESSE around her body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of meeting her. She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which she is the ornament;

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