"Betterton acts to-morrow night," cried the Lady Pratterly: "we must go!" "We must go," cried the Lady Hasselton. "We must go!" cried all. And so passed the time till the puppet-show was over, and my attendance dispensed with. It is a charming thing to be the lover of a lady of the mode! One so honoured does with his hours as a miser with his guineas; namely, nothing but count them! CHAPTER III. MORE LIONS. THE next night, after the theatre, Tarleton and I strolled into Wills's. Half-a-dozen wits were assembled. Heavens! how they talked! actors, actresses, poets, statesmen, philosophers, critics, divines, were all pulled to pieces with the most gratifying malice imaginable. We sat ourselves down, and while Tarleton amused himself with a dish of coffee and the "Flying Post," I listened very attentively to the conversation. Certainly if we would take every opportunity of getting a grain or two of knowledge, we should soon have a chest-full; a man earned an excellent subsistence by asking every one who came out of a tobacconist's shop for a pinch of snuff, and retailing the mixture as soon as he had filled his box.* * "Tatler." While I was listening to a tall lusty gentleman, who was abusing Dogget, the actor, a well-dressed man entered, and immediately attracted the general observation. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance, but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be endeavouring to clothe a natural good-humour with a certain primness which could never be made to fit it. "Ha, Steele!" cried a gentleman in an orange-coloured coat, who seemed by a fashionable swagger of importance desirous of giving the tone to the company,--"Ha, Steele, whence come you? from the chapel or the tavern?" and the speaker winked round the room as if he wished us to participate in the pleasure of a good thing. Mr. Steele drew up, seemingly a little affronted; but his good-nature conquering the affectation of personal sanctity, which, at the time I refer to, that excellent writer was pleased to assume, he contented himself with nodding to the speaker, and saying,-- "All the world knows, Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, and therefore we take your fine sayings as we take change from an honest tradesman,--rest perfectly satisfied with the coin we get, without paying any attention to it." "Zounds, Cleland, you got the worst of it there," cried a gentleman in a flaxen wig. And Steele slid into a seat near my own. Tarleton, who was sufficiently well educated to pretend to the character of a man of letters, hereupon thought it necessary to lay aside the "Flying Post," and to introduce me to my literary neighbour. "Pray," said Colonel Cleland, taking snuff and swinging himself to and fro with an air of fashionable grace, "has any one seen the new paper?"