ave included that which no man has ever yet thoroughly mastered,--the
study of women?"

"Certainly. Do you object to my catching another trout?"

"Trout be--blessed, or the reverse. So you have studied woman. I should
never have thought it. Where and when did you commence that department
of science?"

"When? ever since I was ten years old. Where? first in your own house,
then at college. Hush!--a bite," and another trout left its native
element and alighted on Sir Peter's nose, whence it was solemnly
transferred to the basket.

"At ten years old, and in my own house! That flaunting hussy Jane, the
under-housemaid--"

"Jane! No, sir. Pamela, Miss Byron, Clarissa,--females in Richardson,
who, according to Dr. Johnson, 'taught the passions to move at the
command of virtue.' I trust for your sake that Dr. Johnson did not err
in that assertion, for I found all these females at night in your own
private apartments."

"Oh!" said Sir Peter, "that's all?"

"All I remember at ten years old," replied Kenelm.

"And at Mr. Welby's or at college," proceeded Sir Peter, timorously,
"was your acquaintance with females of the same kind?"

Kenelm shook his head. "Much worse: they were very naughty indeed at
college."

"I should think so, with such a lot of young fellows running after
them."

"Very few fellows run after the females. I mean--rather avoid them."

"So much the better."

"No, my father, so much the worse; without an intimate knowledge of
those females there is little use going to college at all."

"Explain yourself."

"Every one who receives a classical education is introduced into their
society,--Pyrrha and Lydia, Glycera and Corinna, and many more of the
same sort; and then the females in Aristophanes, what do you say to
them, sir?"

"Is it only females who lived two thousand or three thousand years ago,
or more probably never lived at all, whose intimacy you have cultivated?
Have you never admired any real women?"

"Real women! I never met one. Never met a woman who was not a sham,
a sham from the moment she is told to be pretty-behaved, conceal her
sentiments, and look fibs when she does not speak them. But if I am to
learn sham life, I suppose I must put up with sham women."

"Have you been crossed in love that you speak so bitterly of the sex?"

"I don't speak bitterly of the sex. Examine any woman on her oath, and
she'll own she is a sham, always has been, and always will be, and is
proud of it