_Lady Clarinda_.—Next to Mr. Skionar sits Mr. Chainmail, a good-looking young gentleman, as you see, with very antiquated tastes. He is fond of old poetry, and is something of a poet himself. He is deep in monkish literature, and holds that the best state of society was that of the twelfth century, when nothing was going forward but fighting, feasting, and praying, which he says are the three great purposes for which man was made. He laments bitterly over the inventions of gunpowder, steam, and gas, which he says have ruined the world. He lives within two or three miles, and has a large hall, adorned with rusty pikes, shields, helmets, swords, and tattered banners, and furnished with yew-tree chairs, and two long old worm-eaten oak tables, where he dines with all his household, after the fashion of his favourite age. He wants us all to dine with him, and I believe we shall go. _Captain Fitzchrome_.—That will be something new, at any rate. _Lady Clarinda_.—Next to him is Mr. Toogood, the co-operationist, who will have neither fighting nor praying; but wants to parcel out the world into squares like a chess-board, with a community on each, raising everything for one another, with a great steam-engine to serve them in common for tailor and hosier, kitchen and cook. _Captain Fitzchrome_.—He is the strangest of the set, so far. _Lady Clarinda_.—This brings us to the bottom of the table, where sits my humble servant, Mr. Crotchet the younger. I ought not to describe him. _Captain Fitzchrome_.—I entreat you do. _Lady Clarinda_.—Well, I really have very little to say in his favour. _Captain Fitzchrome_.—I do not wish to hear anything in his favour; and I rejoice to hear you say so, because— _Lady Clarinda_.—Do not flatter yourself. If I take him, it will be to please my father, and to have a town and country house, and plenty of servants and a carriage and an opera-box, and make some of my acquaintance who have married for love, or for rank, or for anything but money, die for envy of my jewels. You do not think I would take him for himself. Why, he is very smooth and spruce as far as his dress goes; but as to his face, he looks as if he had tumbled headlong into a volcano, and been thrown up again among the cinders. _Captain Fitzchrome_.—I cannot believe, that, speaking thus of him, you mean to take him at all. _Lady Clarinda_.—Oh! I am out of my teens. I have been very much in love; but now I am come to years of discretion, and must think, like other people, of settling myself advantageously. He was in love with a banker’s daughter, and cast her off at her father’s bankruptcy, and the poor girl has gone to hide herself in some wild place. _Captain Fitzchrome_.—She must have a strange taste, if she pines for the loss of him.