ith company. You will be getting too good dinners.

(6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa.

(7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall say to
this?

(8) Dear little enthusiast!

(9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life.

CHAPTER XXXIII--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE

Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life with a sympathy
for his companions on the same journey--at any rate, every man who has
been jostling in the world for some three or four lustres--must make
no end of melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims whom
Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and
simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at war.
People dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for
fear of Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs.
Honest kindly hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming
with hearty youth, swell into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst
and tumble over. Tender girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish
solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to
happiness and affection with which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows
sad as I see the blundering tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell
with cheap rage, and glow with fury against the Snob. Come down, I say,
thou skulking dulness! Come down, thou stupid bully, and give up thy
brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the sword and spear, and taking
leave of my family, go forth to do battle with that hideous ogre and
giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds so many gentle
hearts in torture and thrall.

When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such thing as old maids
and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. Malthus shall be burned annually,
instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't marry shall go into the
workhouse. It shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl
to love him.

The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk with an old
comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just passing into the state of
old-bachelorhood, after the manly and blooming youth in which I remember
him. Jack was one of the handsomest fellows in England when we entered
together in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the Cuttykilts early, and
lost sight of him for many years.

Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a waistband now, and has
begun to dye his whiskers. His cheeks, which were red, are