me; if it's
done, say done!"

I was all of a maze, but I said, "Done, sir."

"Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have you got a bit of
supper in the house?"

Bearin' in mind them sparklin' warieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled
away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and
gin-and-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free; havin' a chair for
his table, and sittin' down at it on a stool, like hold times--I all of a
maze all the while.

It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the
best of my calculations two pounds and a quarter), that the wisdom as was
in that little man began to come out of him like perspiration.

"Magsman," he says, "look upon me?--You see afore you one as has both gone
into society, and come out."

"O, you _are_ out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?"

"SOLD OUT!" says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed
expressed, when he made use of them two words. "My friend Magsman, I'll
impart to you a discovery I've made. It's wallable; it's cost twelve
thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life. The secret of
this matter is, that it ain't so much that a person goes into society, as
that society goes into a person."

Not exactly keeping up with his meanin', I shook my Ed, put on a deep
look, and said, "You're right there, Mr. Chops."

"Magsman," he says, twitchin' me by the leg, "society has gone into me to
the tune of every penny of my property."

I felt that I went pale, and though not naturally a bold speaker, I
couldn't hardly say, "Where's Normandy?"

"Bolted--with the plate," said Mr. Chops.

"And t'other one?"--meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's miter.

"Bolted--with the jewels," said Mr. Chops.

I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.

"Magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got
hoarser, "society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of Saint
James they was all a doin' my bisness--all a goin' three times round the
Cairawan, in the hold Court suits and properties. Elsewhere, they was most
of 'em ringing their little bells out of makebelieves. Everywheres, the
sarser was a goin' round--Magsman, the sarser is the universal
institution!"

I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortuns, and I
felt for Mr. Chops.

"As to Fat Ladies," says he, giving his Ed a tremendous one ag'in the
wall, "there's lots