de to, Smush, did prevail, I admit. But our
fashionable laws change; one day it is all ultra-refinement and Sybarite
luxury,--the next, they affect a degree of mock simplicity in their
manners: anything for novelty! Now, for instance, eating fish with the
fingers--"

"Do they, indeed, go so far?"

"Do they! ay, and fifty things worse. At a race-dinner the same silver
cup goes round the table, drunk out of by every one. I have seen strange
things in my time."

"That you must, Mr. Cregan."

"Latterly," said I, warming with my subject, and seeing my auditory
ready to believe anything, "they began the same system with the soup,
and always passed the tureen round, each tasting it as it went. This was
an innovation of the Duke of Struttenham's; but I don't fancy it will
last."

"And how do they manage about the hats, Mr. Cregan?"

"The last thing, in that way, was what I saw at Lord Mudbrooke's, at
Richmond, where, not to hamper the guests with these foolish bits of
card, which they were always losing, the servant in waiting chalked a
number on the hat or coat, or whatever it might be, and then marked the
same on the gentleman's back!"

Had it not been for the imposing gravity of my manner, the absurdity of
this suggestion had been at once apparent; but I spoke like an oracle,
and I impressed my words with the simple gravity of a commonplace truth.

"If you wish to do the very newest thing, Smush, that's the
latest,--quite a fresh touch; and, I 'll venture to say, perfectly
unknown here. It saves a world of trouble to all parties; and as you
brush it off before they leave, it is always another claim for the
parting douceur!"

"I'll do it," said Smush, eagerly; "they cannot be angry--"

"Angry! angry at what is done with the very first people in London!"
said I, affecting horror at the bare thought. The train was now laid; I
had only to wait for its explosion.

At first, I did this with eager impatience for the result; then, as the
time drew near, with somewhat of anxiety; and, at last, with downright
fear of the consequences. Yet to revoke the order, to confess that I was
only hoaxing on so solemn a subject, would have been the downfall of my
ascendency forever. What was to be done?

I could imagine but one escape from the difficulty, which was to provide
myself with a clothes-brush, and, as my station was at the drawing-room
door, to erase the numerals before their wearers entered. In this way I
should escape