LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES;
OR,
THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE.
IN THREE SEASONS.
SEASON THE SECOND—THE OGRE.
"If there be one class I dislike more than another, it is that class; and if there be one person in town I utterly detest, it is that man!" said our friend Lady Marabout, with much unction, one morning, to an audience consisting of Bijou, Bonbon, and Pandore, a cockatoo, an Angora cat, and a young lady sitting in a rocking-chair, reading the magazines of the month. The dogs barked, the cockatoo screamed, the cat purred a vehement affirmative, the human auditor looked up, and laughed:
"What is the class, Lady Marabout, may I ask?"
"Those clever, detestable, idle, good-for-nothing, fashionable, worthless men about town, who have not a penny to their fortune, and spend a thousand a year on gloves and scented tobacco—who are seen at everybody's house, and never at their own—who drive horses fit for a Duke's stud, and haven't money enough to keep a donkey on thistles—who have handsome faces and brazen consciences—who are positively leaders of ton, and yet are glad to write feuilletons before the world is up to pay their stall at the Opera—who give a guinea for a bouquet, and can't pay a shilling of their just debts,—I detest the class, my dear!"
"So it seems, Lady Marabout. I never heard you so vehement. And who is the particular scapegoat of this type of sinners?"