“Yes,” continued Sparkle, “_living in style_ is one of the most essential requisites for a residence in London; but I'll give you my idea of living in style, which, by many, is literally nothing more than keeping up appearances at other people's expence: for instance, a Duchess conceives it to consist in taking her breakfast at three o'clock in the afternoon--dining at eight--playing at Faro till four the next morning--supping at five, and going to bed at six--and to eat green peas and peaches in January--in making a half-curtsey at the creed, and a whole one to a scoundrel--in giving fifty guineas to an exotic capon for a pit-ticket--and treating the deserved claims of a parental actor with contempt--to lisp for the mere purpose of appearing singular, and to seem completely ignorant of the Mosaic law--to be in the reverse of extremes--to laugh when she could weep, and weep when she could .dance and be merry--to leave her compliment cards with her acquaintance, whom at the same moment she wishes she may never see again--to speak of the community ~43~~with marked disrespect, and to consider the sacrament a bore!” “Admirable!” said Tom. “Wonderful, indeed!” exclaimed Tallyho. “Aye, aye, London is full of wonders--there is a general and insatiate appetite for the marvellous; but let us proceed: Now we'll take the reverse of the picture. The Duke thinks he does things in style, by paying his debts of honour contracted at the gaming-table, and but very few honourable debts--by being harsh and severe to a private supplicant, while he is publicly a liberal subscriber to a person he never saw--by leaving his vis-a-vis at the door of a well-known courtesan, in order to have the credit of an intrigue--in making use of an optical glass for personal inspection, though he can ascertain the horizon without any--by being or seeming to be, every thing that is in opposition to nature and virtue--in counting the lines in the Red Book, and carefully watching the importation of _figurantes_ from the Continent--in roundly declaring that a man of fashion is a being of a superior order, and ought to be amenable only to himself--in jumbling ethics and physics together, so as to make them destroy each other--in walking arm in arm with a sneering jockey--talking loudly any thing but sense--and in burning long letters without once looking at their contents;... and so much for my Lord Duke.” “Go along Bob!” exclaimed Tom. Tallyho conceiving himself addressed by this, looked up with an air of surprise and enquiry, which excited the risibility of Dashall and Sparkle, till it was explained to him as a common phrase in London, with which he would soon become more familiar. Sparkle continued.