re also inmates.
One of these, _Mr. Enfield Bam_ (Mr. Harley), is a sort of parliamentary
agent, who goes about to dig up aspirants that are buried in obscurity,
and to introduce them to boroughs, by which means he makes a very good
living. His present victim is, of course, _Captain Whistleborough_, upon
whom he is not slow in commencing operations.

_Captain Whistleborough_ has almost every requisite for an orator. He is
an army officer; so his manners are good and his self-possession complete.
His voice is commanding, for it has been long his duty to give the word of
command. Above all, he has a mania to become a member. Yet, alas! one
trifling deficiency ruins his prospects; he has an impediment in his
speech, which debars him from the use of the _W's_. Like the French
alphabet, that letter is denied to him. When he comes to a syllable it
begins, he is _spell_-bound; though he longs to go on, he pulls up quite
short, and sticks fast. The first _W_ he meets with in the flowery paths
of rhetoric causes him to be as dumb as an oyster, or as O. Smith in
"Frankenstein." In vain does he try the Demosthenes' plan by sucking
pebbles on the Brighton shore and haranguing the _w_aves, though he is
unable to address them by name. All is useless, and he has resigned
himself to despair and a Brighton boarding-house, when _Mr. Enfield Bam_
gives him fresh hopes. He informs him that the proprietress of a pocket
borough resides under the same roof, and that he will (for the usual
consideration) get the Captain such an introduction to her as shall ensure
him a seat in her good graces, and another in St. Stephen's. _Mr. Bam_,
therefore, goes off to negotiate with _Miss Polecon_ (Mrs. Tayleure), and
makes way for the intrigues of another sort of an agent, who lives in the
house.

This is _Rivet_ (Mr. C. Mathews), a gentleman who undertakes to procure
for an employer anything upon earth he may want, at so much per cent.
commission. There is nothing that this very general agent cannot get hold
of, from a hack to a husband--from a boat to a baronetcy--from a
tortoise-shell tom-cat to a rich wife. Matrimonial agency is, however, his
passion, and he has plenty of indulgence for it in a Brighton
boarding-house. _Captain Pacific_ wants a wife, _Mrs. Coo_ is a widow, and
all widows want husbands. Thus _Rivet_ makes sure of a swingeing
commission from both parties; for, in imagination, and in his own
memorandum-book, he has already married them