"Sir, I stand upon my honour," said the colonel, petulantly.

"By the powers, you may, and very easily too," whispered O'Farellan, in a side speech to his left hand companion; "for it has been trodden under Foote by others these many months. To be plain with you, colonel, there are certain big whispers abroad, that you and your noble associate, the amiable yonder, with that beautiful obliquity of vision, which is said to have pierced the heart of a northern syren, are the joint Telegraphs of the Age. Sure no man in his senses can suspect Messieurs the Conducteurs of knowing any thing of what passes in polished life, or think—

"Ah, my dear Wewitzer," said Belle Harriet, now Mrs. Goutts, speaking to the late comedian, of some female friend, "she has an eye! an eye, that would pierce through a deal board." "By heavens," said Wewitzer, "that must be then a gimhlet eye." of charging them with any personal knowledge of the amusing incidents they pretend to relate, beyond a certain little wanton's green room on dits, or the chaste conversations of the blushless naiads who sport and frolic in the Cytherian mysteries which are nightly performed in the dark groves of Vauxhall. Take a word of advice from an old soldier, colonel: It is worse than leading a forlorn hope to attempt to storm a garrison single handed; club secrets must be protected by club laws, for 'tis an old Eton maxim, that tales told out of school generally bring the relater to the block. But my friend Stanhope will no doubt explain this matter with a much better grace when he comes in contact with the tale-bearer."

"Hem," instinctively ejaculated Horace C——-t, the once elegant Apollo of Hyde Park, "thereby hangs a tale; 'tis a vile Age, and the sooner we forget it, the better—I am for love and peace." "i.e. a piece" responded the lieutenant. Horace smiled, and continued, "Come, Tom Duncombe, I'll give our mutual favourite, the female Giovanni. Lads, fill your glasses; we toast a deity, and one, too, who has equal claims upon most of us for the everlasting favours she has conferred."

"'Fore Gad, lieutenant," simpered out Lord William, squaring himself round to resume the conversation with the veteran, "if you do not mind your hits, we must positively cut. My friend, the colonel, will certainly set his blacks{5} upon you, and I shall be obliged to speak to little magnanimous, the ex-Brummagem director, to strike off a counterfeit impression of you in his scandalous Sunday chronicle, 'pon honour, I must."

5 A very curious tradition is connected with a certain
castle near Gloucester, which foretells, that the family
name shall be extinct when the race of the blacks* cease to
be peculiar to the family; a prophecy that I think not very
likely to be fulfilled, judging by the conduct of the
present race of representatives.
* A species of Danish blood-hound, whose portraits and names
are carved in the oaken cornice of one of the castle
chambers.

"The divil a care," said the lieutenant, laughingly; "to arms with you, my lord William; my fire engine will soon damp the ardour of little magnanimous, and an extra dose of Tom Bish's compounds put his friend, the fat Gent, where his readers have long been, in sweet somniferous repose. But zounds, gentlemen, I am forgetting the count, whose pardon I crave, for bestowing my attention on minor constellations while indulged with the overpowering brilliancy of his meteoric presence."

"The 'Farewell to the Ring,'" vociferated the count. "Come, lieutenant, give us the episode: I long to hear all my misfortunes strung together in rhyme."

"By the powers, you shall have it, then; and a true history it is, as ever was said or sung in church, chapel, or conventicle, with only one little exception—by the free use of poetic license, the satirist has fixed his hero in a very embarrassing situation—just locked him up at Radford's steel Hotel in Carey Street, Chancery Lane, coning over a long bill of John Long's, and a still longer one of the lawyers, with a sort of codicil, by way of refresher, of the house charges, and a smoking detainer tacked on to its tail, by Hookah Hudson, long enough to put any gentleman's pipe out.

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