excess; our loungers were joined by Lord St.
George. His lordship was a stanch Tory. He could not endure Wilkes,
liberty, or general education. He launched out against the enlightenment
of domestics. [The ancestors of our present footmen, if we may believe
Sir William Temple, seem to have been to the full as intellectual as
their descendants. "I have had," observes the philosophic statesman,
"several servants far gone in divinity, others in poetry; have known, in
the families of some friends; a keeper deep in the Rosicrucian mysteries
and a laundress firm in those of Epicurus."]

"What has made you so bitter?" said Sir Christopher.

"My valet," cried Lord St. George,--"he has invented a new
toasting-fork, is going to take out a patent, make his fortune, and
leave me; that's what I call ingratitude, Sir Christopher; for I ordered
his wages to be raised five pounds but last year."

"It was very ungrateful," said the ironical Clarence.

"Very!" reiterated the good-hearted Sir Christopher.

"You cannot recommend me a valet, Findlater," renewed his lordship, "a
good, honest, sensible fellow, who can neither read nor write?"

"N-o-o,--that is to say, yes! I can; my old servant Collard is out of
place, and is as ignorant as--as--"

"I--or you are?" said Lord St. George, with a laugh.

"Precisely," replied the baronet.

"Well, then, I take your recommendation: send him to me to-morrow at
twelve."

"I will," said Sir Christopher.

"My dear Findlater," cried Clarence, when Lord St. George was gone, "did
you not tell me, some time ago, that Collard was a great rascal, and
very intimate with Jefferies? and now you recommend him to Lord St.
George!"

"Hush, hush, hush!" said the baronet; "he was a great rogue to be sure:
but, poor fellow, he came to me yesterday with tears in his eyes, and
said he should starve if I would not give him a character; so what could
I do?"

"At least, tell Lord St. George the truth," observed Clarence.

"But then Lord St. George would not take him!" rejoined the good-hearted
Sir Christopher, with forcible naivete. "No, no, Linden, we must not be
so hard-hearted; we must forgive and forget;" and so saying, the baronet
threw out his chest, with the conscious exultation of a man who has
uttered a noble sentiment. The moral of this little history is that
Lord St. George, having been pillaged "through thick and thin," as the
proverb has it, for two years, at last missed a gold watch, and Mons