retorted the gentleman addressed, "you're already
famous for clinging to her skirt."

"But cling to mine, Bully, and we'll all enter the temple together. But
I bid you welcome, Richard," said his Lordship; "you come with two of
the most delightful vagabonds in the world."

Mr. Fox introduced me in succession to Colonel St. John, known in St.
James's Street as the Baptist; to my Lord Bolingbroke, Colonel
St. John's brother, who was more familiarly called Bully; to Mr.
Fitzpatrick's brother, the Earl of Upper Ossory, who had come up to
London, so he said, to see a little Italian dance at the Garden; to
Gilly Williams; to Sir Charles Bunbury, who had married Lady Sarah
Lennox, Fox's cousin, the beauty who had come so near to being queen of
all England; to Mr. Storer, who was at once a Caribbee and a Crichton;
to Mr. Uvedale Price. These I remember, but there are more that escape
me. Most good-naturedly they drank my health in Charles's vin de grave,
at four shillings the bottle; and soon I was astonished to find myself
launched upon the story of my adventures, which they had besought me
to tell them. When I had done, they pledged me again, and, beginning to
feel at home, I pledged them handsomely in return. Then the conversation
began. The like of it I have never heard anywhere else in the world.
There was a deal that might not be written here, and a deal more that
might, to make these pages sparkle. They went through the meetings, of
course, and thrashed over the list of horses entered at Ipswich, and
York, and Newmarket, and how many were thought to be pulled. Then
followed the recent gains and losses of each and every individual of
the company. After that there was a roar of merriment over Mr.
Storer cracking mottoes with a certain Lady Jane; and how young
Lord Stavordale, on a wager, tilted the candles and set fire to the
drawing-room at Lady Julia's drum, the day before. Mr. Price told of the
rage Topham Beauclerk had got Dr. Johnson into, by setting down a mark
for each oyster the sage had eaten, and showing him the count. But Mr.
Fox, who was the soul of the club, had the best array of any. He related
how he had gone post from Paris to Lyons, to order, among other things,
an embroidered canary waistcoat for George Selwyn from Jabot. "' Et
quel dessin, monsieur?' 'Beetles and frogs, in green.' 'Escargots!
grenouilles!' he cries, with a shriek; 'Et pour Monsieur Selwyn!
Monsieur Fox badine!' It came yesterday, by Cr