ain, to drive
home Mr. Squinny to Brompton?"

"Can't Mr. Squinny get a cab?"

Sir George looked particularly arch. "Generalship, my dear young
friend--a little harmless generalship. Mr. Squinny will not give much
for MY opinion of my pupil, but he will value very highly the opinion of
the Honourable Mr. FitzUrse."

For a moral man, was not the little knight a clever fellow? He had
bought Mr. Squinny for a dinner worth ten shillings, and for a ride in
a carriage with a lord's son. Squinny was carried to Brompton, and set
down at his aunts' door, delighted with his new friends, and exceedingly
sick with a cigar they had made him smoke.

CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH MR. WALKER SHOWS GREAT PRUDENCE AND FORBEARANCE.

The describing of all these persons does not advance Morgiana's story
much. But, perhaps, some country readers are not acquainted with the
class of persons by whose printed opinions they are guided, and are
simple enough to imagine that mere merit will make a reputation on the
stage or elsewhere. The making of a theatrical success is a much more
complicated and curious thing than such persons fancy it to be. Immense
are the pains taken to get a good word from Mr. This of the Star, or Mr.
That of the Courier, to propitiate the favour of the critic of the day,
and get the editors of the metropolis into a good humour,--above all, to
have the name of the person to be puffed perpetually before the public.
Artists cannot be advertised like Macassar oil or blacking, and they
want it to the full as much; hence endless ingenuity must be practised
in order to keep the popular attention awake. Suppose a great actor
moves from London to Windsor, the Brentford Champion must state that
"Yesterday Mr. Blazes and suite passed rapidly through our city; the
celebrated comedian is engaged, we hear, at Windsor, to give some of his
inimitable readings of our great national bard to the MOST ILLUSTRIOUS
AUDIENCE in the realm." This piece of intelligence the Hammersmith
Observer will question the next week, as thus:--"A contemporary, the
Brentford Champion, says that Blazes is engaged to give Shakspearian
readings at Windsor to "the most illustrious audience in the realm." We
question this fact very much. We would, indeed, that it were true; but
the MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AUDIENCE in the realm prefer FOREIGN melodies to
THE NATIVE WOOD-NOTES WILD of the sweet song-bird of Avon. Mr. Blazes
is simply gone to Eton, where his son, Master Mass