his acquaintance.

Let us suppose that he is an officer of a hard-fighting,
foreign-service, neglected infantry regiment. This, which to a soldier
would be an honest pride, is the shame of the Heavy Military Swell. His
chief business in life, next to knowing the names and faces of lords, is
concealing from you the corps to which he has the dishonour, he thinks,
to belong. He talks mightily of the service, of hussars and light
dragoons; but when he knows that you know better, when you poke him hard
about the young or old buffs, or the dirty half-hundred, he whispers in
your ear that "my fellows," as he calls them, are very "fast," and that
they are "all known in town, very well known indeed"--a piece of
information you will construe in the case of the heavy swell to mean,
better known than trusted.

When he is on full pay, the heavy swell is known to the three old women
and five desperate daughters who compose good society in country
quarters. He affects a patronizing air at small tea-parties, and is
wonderfully run after by wretched un-idea'd girls, that is, by ten girls
in twelve; he is eternally striving to get upon the "staff," or anyhow
to shirk his regimental duty; he is a whelp towards the men under his
command, and has a grand idea of spurs, steel scabbards, and flogging;
to his superiors he is a spaniel, to his brother officers an intolerable
ass; he makes the mess-room a perfect hell with his vanity, puppyism,
and senseless bibble-babble.

On leave, or half-pay, he "mounts mustaches," to help the hussar and
light-dragoon idea, or to delude the ignorant into a belief that he may
possibly belong to the household cavalry. He hangs about doors of
military clubs, with a whip in his hand; talks very loud at the "Tiger"
or the "Rag and famish," and never has done shouting to the waiter to
bring him a "Peerage;" carries the "Red Book" and "Book of Heraldry" in
his pocket; sees whence people come, and where they go, and makes them
out somehow; in short, he is regarded with a thrill of horror by people
of fashion, fast or slow, civil or military.

The Civil Heavy Swell affects fashionable curricles, and enjoys all the
consideration a pair of good horses can give. He rides a blood bay in
Rotten Row, but rides badly, and is detected by galloping, or some other
solecism; his dress and liveries are always overdone, the money shows on
every thing about him. He has familiar abbreviations for the names of
all the fast men