“Ar--many thanks, you’re one of the few men whose taste I can, rely on; but--ar--really, the things they sell now, and pretend to call genuine, are such trash, that--ar--I am forced to import my own. I sent out an agent to Cuba express--ar--at least, Robinson, who supplies my club--ar--the Caryatides, you know--sent him on a hint from me, and I can’t match the cigars he brought me anywhere; I’ve never met with anything like them. Ask your brother; he knows them--ar--I let him have half a box as the greatest favour.” “Bell lives on cigars and gin-and-water when he’s in his native state,” returned Leicester, slightly altering his position so that he could rest his back more conveniently against a statue. “If he’s been going too fast, and gets out of condition, he takes a course of that sort of thing, and it always brings him right again; it’s like turning a screwy horse out to grass.” De Grandeville, who had appeared somewhat abstracted during this interesting record of the domestic habits of Lord Bellefield, changed the conversation by observing, “Ar--you see, when a man of a certain--ar--position in society gets--ar--towards middle life--ar--say, three or four-and-thirty, it appears to me that it adds very much to his weight to--ar--to----” “To drink brown stout instead of pale ale,” exclaimed Leicester more eagerly than his wont. “I observed you did so at----, when we were treating the incorruptible electors, and it struck me as a decided mistake.” “Ar--yes, I believe--that is, of course--you are right; but that was not exactly what I was going to observe,” returned De Grandeville, slightly embarrassed. “In fact, I was going to say that it adds to a man’s weight in society, increases his influence, and improves his general position to be--ar--well married!”