_B_. He does: it is one of the most splendid pieces of writing in our language. But I will have no profanation, Arthur;--to your pen again, and write. We'll suppose our hero to have retired from the crowded festivities of a ball-room at some lordly mansion in the country, and to have wandered into a churchyard, damp and dreary with a thick London fog. In the light dress of fashion, he throws himself on a tombstone. "Ye dead!" exclaims the hero, "where are ye? Do your disembodied spirits now float around me, and, shrouded in this horrible veil of nature, glare unseen upon vitality? Float ye upon this intolerable mist, in yourselves still more misty and intolerable? Hold ye high jubilee to-night? or do ye crouch behind these monitorial stones, gibbering and chattering at one who dares thus to invade your precincts? Here may I hold communion with my soul, and, in the invisible presence of those who could, but dare not to reveal. Away! it must not be." _A_. What mustn't be? _B_. That is the mystery which gives the point to his soliloquy. Leave it to the reader's imagination. _A_. I understand. But still the Honourable Augustus cannot lie in bed much longer, and I really shall not be able to get him out without your assistance. I do not comprehend how a man can get out of bed _gracefully_; he must show his bare legs, and the alteration of position is in itself awkward. _B_. Not half so awkward as you are. Do you not feel that he must not be got out of bed at all--that is, by description. _A_. How then? _B_. By saying nothing about it. Recommence as follows:--"`I should like the bath at seventy-six and a half, Coridon,' observed the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, as he wrapped his embroidered dressing gown round his elegant form, and sank into a _chaise longue_, wheeled by his faithful attendant to the fire." There, you observe, he is out of bed, and nothing said about it. _A_. Go on, I pray thee. _A_. "`How is the bath perfumed?' `_Eau de mille fleurs_.' `_Eau de mille fleurs_! Did not I tell you last week that I was tired of that villainous compound? It has been adulterated till nothing remains but its name. Get me another bath immediately _a la violette_; and, Coridon, you may use that other scent, if there is any left, for the poodle; but observe, only when _you_ take him an airing, not when he goes with _me_.'" _A_. Excellent! I now feel the real merits of an exclusive; but you said something about dressing-room, or in-door philosophy. _B_. I did; and now is a good opportunity to introduce it. Coridon goes into the ante-chamber to renew the bath, and of course your hero has met with a disappointment in not having the bath to his immediate pleasure. He must press his hands to his forehead. By-the-by, recollect that his forehead, when you describe it, must be high and white as snow: all aristocratical foreheads are--at least, are in a fashionable novel. _A_. What! the women's and all?