ure
himself--hounds were expensive things--led to habits of
irregularity--should be sorry to see such a nice young man as Mr. Waffles
led astray--not that it would make any difference to them, _but_--(looking
significantly at their daughters). No fox had been hunted by more hounds
than Waffles had been by the ladies; but though he had chatted and prattled
with fifty fair maids--any one of whom he might have found difficult to
resist, if 'pinned' single-handed by, in a country house, yet the
multiplicity of assailants completely neutralized each other, and verified
the truth of the adage that there is 'safety in a crowd.'

If pretty, lisping Miss Wordsworth thought she had shot an arrow home to
his heart over night, a fresh smile and dart from little Mary Ogleby's dark
eyes extracted it in the morning, and made him think of her till the
commanding figure and noble air of the Honourable Miss Letitia Amelia
Susannah Jemimah de Jenkins, in all the elegance of first-rate millinery
and dressmakership, drove her completely from his mind, to be in turn
displaced by some one more bewitching. Mr. Waffles was reputed to be made
of money, and he went at it as though he thought it utterly impossible to
get through it. He was greatly aided in his endeavours by the fact of its
being all in the funds--a great convenience to the spendthrift. It keeps
him constantly in cash, and enables him to 'cut and come again,' as quick
as ever he likes. Land is not half so accommodating; neither is money on
mortgage. What with time spent in investigating a title, or giving notice
to 'pay in,' an industrious man wants a second loan by the time, or perhaps
before, he gets the first. Acres are not easy of conversion, and the mere
fact of wanting to sell implies a deficiency somewhere. With money in the
funds, a man has nothing to do but lodge a power of attorney with his
broker, and write up for four or five thousand pounds, just as he would
write to his bootmaker for four or five pairs of boots, the only difference
being, that in all probability the money would be down before the boots.
Then, with money in the funds, a man keeps up his credit to the far
end--the last thousand telling no more tales than the first, and making
just as good a show.

We are almost afraid to say what Mr. Waffles' means were, but we really
believe, at the time he came of age, that he had 100,000_l._ in the funds,
which were nearly at 'par'--a term expressive of each hundred