poor old Griff. Lloyd.

What between the field and college, young Puffington made the acquaintance
of several very dashing young sparks--Lord Firebrand, Lord Mudlark, Lord
Deuceace, Sir Harry Blueun, and others, whom he always spoke of as
'Deuceace,' 'Blueun,' etc., in the easy style that marks the perfect
gentleman.[1] How proud the old people were of him! How they would sit
listening to him, flashing, and telling how Deuceace and he floored a
Charley, or Blueun and he pitched a snob out of the boxes into the pit.
This was in the old Tom-and-Jerry days, when fisticuffs were the fashion.
One evening, after he had indulged us with a more than usual dose, and was
leaving the room to dress for an eight o'clock dinner at Long's, 'Buzzer!'
exclaimed the old man, clutching our arm, as the tears started to his eyes,
'Buzzer! that's an am_aa_zin' instance of a pop'lar man!' And certainly, if
a large acquaintance is a criterion of popularity, young Puffington, as he
was then called, had his fair share. He once did us the honour--an honour
we shall never forget--of walking down Bond Street with us, in the
spring-tide of fashion, of a glorious summer's day, when you could not
cross Conduit Street under a lapse of a quarter of an hour, and carriages
seemed to have come to an interminable lock at the Piccadilly end of the
street. In those days great people went about like great people, in
handsome hammer-clothed, arms-emblazoned coaches, with plethoric
three-corner-hatted coachmen, and gigantic, lace-bedizened,
quivering-calved Johnnies, instead of rumbling along like apothecaries in
pill-boxes, with a handle inside to let themselves out. Young men, too,
dressed as if they were dressed--as if they were got up with some care and
attention--instead of wearing the loose, careless, flowing, sack-like
garments they do now.

We remember the day as if it were but yesterday; Puffington overtook us in
Oxford Street, where we were taking our usual sauntering stare into the
shop windows, and instead of shirking or slipping behind our back, he
actually ran his arm up to the hilt in ours, and turned us into the middle
of the flags, with an 'Ah, Buzzer, old boy, what are you doing in this
debauched part of the town? Come along with me, and I'll show you Life!'

So saying he linked arms, and pursuing our course at a proper kill-time
sort of pace, we were at length brought up at the end of Vere Street, along
which there was a regular rush of carr