ng of all sorts of respectable things, such as the state of the
money-market, and what Sir George said to him the other day about the
reviving prospects of Protection; and what avails your secret
writhing? He holds you by the glittering eye. You listen, you make
jocular observations in reply; the cards and the insolvency vanish
from your thoughts; you at length shake hands, and part in a transport
of good-humoured old acquaintanceship, and not till you have got a
hundred yards away, do you cool down sufficiently to remember that you
have made a fool of yourself by patronising an imperfect
respectability.

It is, after all, _not_ a harsh and censorious world. Let the
imperfect respectabilities bear witness. If rigid justice held rule
below, or men were really persecutors of each other, there would be no
life for that class. In point of fact, they not only live, but
sometimes do tolerably well in the world. They only could do so by
virtue of a certain mutual tolerance which pervades society. It is a
nice matter, however, to say what degree of imperfect respectability
will be endured. Some things, we all know, cannot be forgiven upon
earth; and in such cases there is no resource but in obscurity. But
there is also a large class of offences, the consequences of which may
be overcome. Perhaps the facts do not come fully out into general
notice. Perhaps there may be some little thing to say in exculpation.
If the offender can, after a short space, continue to make his usual
personal appearances, he is safe, because the great bulk of his old
friends would rather continue to recognise him, than come to a
positive rupture--an event always felt as inconvenient. Of course,
they will be too well-bred to allude before him to any unpleasant fact
in his history. He will never recall it to their minds. By being thus
thrown out of all common reference, it will become obscured to a
wonderful degree, insomuch that many will at length think of it only
as a kind of domestic myth, to which no importance is to be attached.
Thus Time is continually bringing in his bills of indemnity in favour
of these unconfessing culprits. Were the world as harsh as is said, we
should rather be having _post-facto_ acts to punish them, supposing
that existing statutes were insufficient.

One of the most curious points in the physiology of an imperfect
respectability, is the fact of his almost always having something
remarkably agreeable and attractive about