ur the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a young
divine whom you may track through the country by little 'awakening'
books at half-a-crown a hundred, which dribble out of his pockets
wherever he goes. I saw him give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little
Washer-woman on Putney Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen
of 'Meat in the Tray; or the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and on paying
a visit to Guttlebury gaol, I saw two notorious fellows waiting their
trial there (and temporarily occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom
his Reverence offered a tract as he was walking over Crackshins Common,
and who robbed him of his purse, umbrella, and cambric handkerchief,
leaving him the tracts to distribute elsewhere.

CHAPTER XXXI--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS

'Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion (to whom I
present my best compliments), 'if you found everything so SNOBBISH at
the Evergreens, if the pig bored you and the mutton was not to your
liking, and Mrs. Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her
abominable piano practice,--why did you stay so long?'

Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gallant British
soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing nights in plague wards
of lazarettos, and other instances of martyrdom? What do you suppose
induced gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of Sabroan, with
a hundred and fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds?--not
pleasure, surely. What causes your respected father to quit his
comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most
dreary law papers until long past midnight?, Mademoiselle; duty, which
must be done alike by military, or legal, or literary gents. There's a
power of martyrdom in our profession.

You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity--a
most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face. Well, then,
the fact is, that my chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being
painted by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my laundress,
having occasion to go into Durham to see her daughter, who is married,
and has presented her with the sweetest little grandson--a few weeks
could not be better spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delightful
Pump Court looked when I revisited its well-known chimney-pots! CARI
LUOGHI. Welcome, welcome, O fog and smut!

But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing account of the
Pontine family, you a