lace in society,
and the task of describing them is tremendous. There was a time in my
life when the consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me
dumb regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach
of hospitality to speak ill of him.

But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot and
lobster-sauce shut your mouth for ever? With advancing age, men see
their duties more clearly. I am not to be hoodwinked any longer by a
slice of venison, be it ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of
turbot and lobster-sauce----of course I am; good manners ordain that I
should be so, until I have swallowed the compound--but not afterwards;
directly the victuals are discussed, and John takes away the plate,
my tongue begins to wag. Does not yours, if you have a pleasant
neighbour?--a lovely creature, say, of some five-and-thirty, whose
daughters have not yet quite come out--they are the best talkers. As for
your young misses, they are only put about the table to look at--like
the flowers in the centre-piece. Their blushing youth and natural
modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, conversational ABANDON
which forms the delight of the intercourse with their dear mothers. It
is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, that the Dining-out
Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to one of these, how
pleasant it is, in the intervals of the banquet, actually to abuse the
victuals and the giver of the entertainment! It's twice as PIQUANT to
make fun of a man under his very nose.

'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who is not REPANDU
in the world, may ask--or some simple reader who has not the benefits of
London experience.

My dear sir, I will show you--not all, for that is impossible--but
several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. For instance, suppose you, in the
middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold
on Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and a small
establishment, choose to waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy
by giving entertainments unnaturally costly--you come into the
Dinner-giving Snob class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made
dishes from the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or
carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest Molly, who waits
on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with
willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham