far
too petty a place for them; dullness all the year round (however
pleasant for a month or so, as a holiday from toilsome pleasures) would
never have done for Lady Tamworth and her daughters: but they regularly
took Prospect House for six weeks in the summer season, when tired of
Portland Place, and Huntover, their fine estate in Cheshire: and so,
from constant annual immigration, came as much to be regarded
Burleighites, as swifts and swallows to be ranked as British birds. I
only hint at this piece of information, for fear any should think it
unlikely, that grandees of Sir Abraham's condition could exist for ever
in a place where the day-before-yesterday's '_Times_' is first
intelligence.

Moreover, as another interjectional touch, it is only due to my
life-likenesses to record, that Mrs. Green's, although a terrace-house,
and ranked as humble number seven, was, nevertheless, a tolerably
spacious mansion, well suited for the dignity of a butler to repose in:
for Mrs. Green had added an entire dwelling on the inland side, as, like
most maritime inhabitants, she was thoroughly sick of the sea, and never
cared to look at it, though living there still, from mere disinclination
to stir: so, then, it was quite a double house, both spacious and
convenient. As for the inglorious incident of Julian's latch-key, I
should not wonder if many wide street-doors to many marble halls are
conscious of similar convenient fastenings, if gentlemen of Julian's
nocturnal tastes happen to be therein dwelling. Another little matter is
worth one word. The house had been Mrs. Green's, a freehold, and was,
therefore, now her heir's; but the general, as an executor, remained
there still, until his business was finished; in fact, he took his
year's liberty.

He had returned from India rolling in gold; for some great princess or
other--I think they called her a Begum or a Glumdrum, or other such like
Gulliverian appellative--had been singularly fond of him, and had loaded
him in early life with favours--not only kisses, and so forth, but
jewellery and gold pagodas. And lately, as we know, Puttymuddyfudgepoor,
with its radiating rajahs and nabobs, had proved a mine of wealth: for a
crore is ten lacs, and a lac of rupees is any thing but a lack of
money--although rupees be money, and the "middle is distributed;" in
spite of logic, then, a lack means about twelve thousand pounds: and
four of them, according to Cocker, some fifty thousand. It wou