put out," according
to his evident wish and expectation, "and I will use the plainest
language in my exposition, so that you may be able to understand me! A
cynic, I take it, is one who talks or writes bitterly, in the
gratification of a malicious temperament, merely for the sake of
inflicting pain on the object of his attack, just as a bad-dispositioned
boy will stick pins in a donkey, or persecute a frog, for the sheer sake
of seeing it wince: a satirist, on the contrary, is a philosopher who
ridicules traits of character, customs and mannerisms, with the
intention of remedying existing evils, abolishing abuses, and reforming
society--in the same way as a surgeon performs an operation to remove an
injured limb, inflicting temporary pain on his patient, with the
prospect of ultimate good resulting from it. I have never seen this
definition given anywhere; consequently, as it is but my own private
opinion, you need only take it for what it is worth."

"Thank you, Mr Lorton," said _somebody_, giving me a gratefully
intelligent look from a pair of deep, thinking grey eyes.

"Oh, indeed! so that's your opinion, Lorton?" put in Mr Mawley, as
antagonistic as ever. "So that's your opinion, is it? I _will_ do as
you say, and take it for what it is worth--that is, keep my own still!
You may be very sharp and clever, and all that sort of thing, my dear
fellow; but I don't see the difference between the two that you have so
lucidly pointed out. Satire and cynicism are co-equal terms to my mind:
your argument won't persuade me, Lorton, although I must say that you
are absolutely brilliant to-day. You should really start a school of
Modern Literature, my dear fellow, and set up as a professor of the
same!"

"Please get my scissors, Frank," said Miss Pimpernell, trying to stop
our wordy warfare. I got them; but I had my return blow at the curate
all the same.

"I suppose you'd be one of my first pupils, Mr Mawley," I said. "I
think I could coach you up a little!"

He was going to crush me with some of his sledge-hammer declamation,
being thoroughly roused, when Bessie Dasher averted the storm, by
entering the arena and changing the conversation to a broader footing.

"How I dote on Thackeray!" she exclaimed with all her natural
impulsiveness. "What a dear, delicious creature Becky Sharp is; and
that funny old baronet, Sir Pitt something or other, too! When I first
took up _Vanity Fair_ I could not let it out of my h