a, you now!" said the Beauty; "I do not comprehend you exactly: your
master of the graces does not teach you your compliments properly."

"Yes, he does, but in your presence I forget them; and now," I added,
lowering my voice into the lowest of whispers, "now that you are assured
of my fidelity, will you not learn at last to discredit rumours and
trust to me?"

"I love you too well!" answered the Lady Hasselton in the same tone, and
that answer gives an admirable idea of the affection of every coquette!
love and confidence with them are qualities that have a natural
antipathy, and can never be united. Our _tete-a-tete_ was at an end; the
people round us became social, and conversation general.

"Betterton acts to-morrow night," cried the Lady Pratterly: "we must
go!"

"We must go," cried the Lady Hasselton.

"We must go!" cried all.

And so passed the time till the puppet-show was over, and my attendance
dispensed with.

It is a charming thing to be the lover of a lady of the mode! One
so honoured does with his hours as a miser with his guineas; namely,
nothing but count them!

CHAPTER III.

MORE LIONS.

THE next night, after the theatre, Tarleton and I strolled into Wills's.
Half-a-dozen wits were assembled. Heavens! how they talked! actors,
actresses, poets, statesmen, philosophers, critics, divines, were all
pulled to pieces with the most gratifying malice imaginable. We sat
ourselves down, and while Tarleton amused himself with a dish of coffee
and the "Flying Post," I listened very attentively to the conversation.
Certainly if we would take every opportunity of getting a grain or
two of knowledge, we should soon have a chest-full; a man earned
an excellent subsistence by asking every one who came out of a
tobacconist's shop for a pinch of snuff, and retailing the mixture as
soon as he had filled his box.*

* "Tatler."

While I was listening to a tall lusty gentleman, who was abusing Dogget,
the actor, a well-dressed man entered, and immediately attracted the
general observation. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance,
but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something
constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be
endeavouring to clothe a natural good-humour with a certain primness
which could never be made to fit it.

"Ha, Steele!" cried a gentleman in an orange-coloured coat, who seemed
by a fashionable swagger of importance desirous of giving