n
and wife aforehand! And while the Colonel laughed at the cuckold, the
cuckold laughed at the dupe. For you sees, Sir, as how the Colonel was
a rich man, and the jewels as he bought for the lady went half into the
husband's pocket--he! he!--That's the way of the world, Sir,--that's the
way of the world!"

"Upon my word, you draw a very bad picture of the world: you colour
highly; and, by the way, I observe that whenever you find any man
committing a roguish action, instead of calling him a scoundrel, you
show those great teeth of yours, and chuckle out 'A man of the world! a
man of the world!"'

"To be sure, your honour; the proper name, too. 'Tis your green-horns
who fly into a passion, and use hard words. You see, Sir, there's one
thing we larn afore all other things in the world--to butter bread.
Knowledge of others, means only the knowledge which side bread's
buttered. In short, Sir, the wiser grow, the more take care of oursels.
Some persons make a mistake, and, in trying to take care of themsels,
run neck into halter--baugh! they are not rascals--they are would-be
men of the world. Others be more prudent, (for, as I said afore, Sir,
discretion is a pair of stirrups;) they be the true men of the world."

"I should have thought," said Walter, "that the knowledge of the world
might be that knowledge which preserves us from being cheated, but not
that which enables us to cheat."

"Augh!" quoth the Corporal, with that sort of smile with which you see
an old philosopher put down a sounding error from the lips of a young
disciple who flatters himself he has uttered something prodigiously
fine,--"Augh! and did not I tell you, t'other day, to look at the
professions, your honour? What would a laryer be if he did not know how
to cheat a witness and humbug a jury?--knows he is lying,--why is he
lying? for love of his fees, or his fame like, which gets fees;--Augh!
is not that cheating others?--The doctor, too, Master Fillgrave, for
instance?--" "Say no more of doctors; I abandon them to your satire,
without a word."

"The lying knaves! Don't they say one's well when one's ill--ill when
one's well?--profess to know what don't know?--thrust solemn phizzes
into every abomination, as if larning lay hid in a--? and all for their
neighbours' money, or their own reputation, which makes money--augh! In
short, Sir--look where will, impossible to see so much cheating allowed,
praised, encouraged, and feel very angry with a chea