me that the savage and the savages
retired together.

"Having had a great deal too much to eat and drink three hours before,
my partners must have chicken and rack-punch at Vauxhall, where George
fell asleep straightway, and for my sins I must tell Tony Storer what
I knew about this Virginian's amiable family, especially some of the
Bernstein's antecedents, and the history of another elderly beauty of
the family, a certain Lady Maria, who was au mieux with the late Prince
of Wales. What did I say? I protest not half of what I knew, and of
course not a tenth part of what I was going to tell, for who should
start out upon us but my savage, this time quite red in the face; and in
his war paint. The wretch had been drinking fire-water in the next box!

"He cocked his hat, clapped his hand to his sword, asked which of the
gentleman was it that was maligning his family? so that I was obliged to
entreat him not to make such a noise, lest he should wake my friend, Mr.
George Selwyn. And I added, 'I assure you, sir, I had no idea that you
were near me, and most sincerely apologise for giving you pain.'

"The Huron took his hand off his tomahawk at this pacific rejoinder,
made a bow not ungraciously, said he could not, of course, ask more than
an apology from a gentleman of my age (Merci, monsieur!), and, hearing
the name of Mr. Selwyn, made another bow to George, and said he had
a letter to him from Lord March, which he had had the ill-fortune to
mislay. George has put him up for the club, it appears, in conjunction
with March, and no doubt these three lambs will fleece each other.
Meanwhile, my pacified savage sate down with us, and buried the hatchet
in another bowl of punch, for which these gentlemen must call. Heaven
help us! 'Tis eleven o'clock, and here comes Bedson with my gruel! H. W.

"To the Honourable. H. S. Conway."

CHAPTER XLI. Rake's Progress

People were still very busy in Harry Warrington's time (not that our
young gentleman took much heed of the controversy) in determining
the relative literary merits of the ancients and the moderns; and the
learned, and the world with them, indeed, pretty generally pronounced in
favour of the former. The moderns of that day are the ancients of
ours, and we speculate upon them in the present year of grace, as our
grandchildren, a hundred years hence, will give their judgment about us.
As for your book-learning, O respectable ancestors (though, to be sure,
you hav