"I have noticed," said Mr. Courtney, standing up and looking around him with that benevolent expression which he always assumed when about to give utterance to an intensely-unpleasant remark, "I have noticed that when a--point of fact, a cad--tries to get into sassiety on which he has no claim for admission, he invariably selects the wrong people. What you just said, my dear Paul, bears out my argument entirely. This man Branwhite--worthy person, official position, and that kind of thing; no more knowledge of decent people than a Hottentot--struggles to get into sassiety, and who does he get to introduce him? Dickson, brewer-man, malt and hops and drugs, and blue boards with 'Entire,' and that kind of thing. Worthy person in his way, and married Lady Selina Walkinshaw, sister of Lord Barclay; but as to sassiety--very third-rate, God bless my soul, very third-rate indeed!" "Well, I don't know any swells," said Billy Dunlop, "and I don't think I want to. From what I've seen of 'em, they're scarcely so convivial as they might be. Not in the drinking line; I don't mean that--they're all there; but in the talking. And talking of talking, Mr. Wainwright, we've not had the pleasure of hearing your charming voice for the last quarter of an hour. Has it come off at last?" "Has what come off, Billy?" asked George Wainwright. "The amputation. Has our father the eminent, &c, at last performed the operation and cut off our tongue? and is it then in a choice vial, neatly preserved in spirits-of-wine, covered over with a bit of a kid-glove, tied down with packthread, and placed on a shelf between a stethoscope and a volume of 'Quain's Anatomy': is that it?" "Funny dog!" said George Wainwright, looking across at him. "I often wonder why you stop here, Billy, at two-forty, rising to three-eighty by annual increments of ten, when there's such a splendid future awaiting you in the ring. That mug of yours is worth a pound a-week alone; and then those charming witticisms, so new, so fresh, so eminently humorous----" "Will you shut up?" "How they would fetch the threepenny gallery! Why don't I talk? I do sometimes in your absence; but when you're here, I feel like one of 'those meaner beauties of the night, which poorly satisfy our eyes;' and when you begin I ask myself: 'What are you when the moon shall rise?'" "Shut up, will you? not merely your mouth, but your inkstand, blotting-book, and all the rest of the paraphernalia by which you wring an existence out of a too-easily-satisfied Government. You seem to have forgotten it's Saturday." "By Jove, so it is!" said George Wainwright.