She loves to aid the hypocrite and liar,
Helping poor rascals through the mire,
Whom filth and infamy begrime:
She's one of guilt's most useful drudges,
Her good advice she never grudges,
Gives parsons meekness, gravity to judges;
But frowns upon the man of rhyme!
Good store of prudence had the Fubsy family. Their honest scruples always prevented them from burning their fingers. They were much too wise to walk into a well. They kept on the windy side of the law. They were vastly prone to measure other people's morality by the family bushel, and had exceedingly grand notions touching their self-importance; (little minds, like little men, cannot afford to stoop!) which those who have seen a cock on a dunghill, or a crow in a gutter, may have some idea of.
Nothing pleased Mrs. Flumgarten. Mr. Bosky's equipage she politely brought into depreciating comparison with the staring yellow and blue, brass-mounted, and screw-wigged turn-out of her acquaintances the Kickwitches, the mushroom aristocracy of retired “Putty and Lead!” And when Mr. Muff, who was no herald, hearing something about Mr. Bosky's arms being painted on the panels, innocently inquired whether his legs were not painted too?—at which Uncle Timothy involuntarily smiled—the scarlet-liveried pride of the Fubsys rushed into her cheeks, and she bridled up, wondering what there was in Mr. Muffs question to be laughed at. Knowing the susceptibility of Mrs. Flumgarten's nervous system, Uncle Timothy desired John Tomkins to drive moderately slow. This was “scratching away at a snail's pace! a cat's gallop!”
“A little faster, John,” said Uncle Timothy, mildly. This was racing along like “Sabbath-day, pleasure-taking, public-house people in a tax-cart!” Not an exhibition, prospect, person, or thing, were to her mind. The dinner, which might have satisfied Apicius, she dismissed with “faint praise,” sighing a supplementary complaint, by way of errata, that there “was no pickles!”—and the carving—until the well-bred Mrs. Flumgarten snatched the knife and fork out of Uncle Timothy's hands—was “awful! horrid!” Then she never tastes such sherry as she does at her cousins' the Shufflebothams; and as for their black amber (Hambro'?) grapes, oh! they was fit for your perfect gentlefolks!—An inquiry from mine host, whether Uncle Timothy preferred a light or a full wine, drew forth this jocular answer, “I like a full wine, and a full bottle, Master Boniface.”—“So do I,” added the unguarded Mr. Muff. This was “tremendious!”