Nowadays it is as much as one can do to get a cabman to take one to Berwick Street or Berkeley Square, unless one calls them Berwick or Burkley. Gower Street and Pall Mall are pronounced as they are spelt; and, if one wants a ticket for Derby, the booking-clerk obligingly corrects one's request to "Durby." And, as with pronunciation, so also with phrase and diction-- "Change and decay in all around I see." When I was young the word "lunch," whether substantive or verb, was regarded with a peculiar horror, and ranked with "'bus" in the lowest depths of vulgarity. To "take" in the sense of eat or drink was another abomination which lay too deep for words. "You take exercise or take physic; nothing else," said Brummel to the lady who asked him to take tea. "I beg your pardon, you also take a liberty," was the just rejoinder. I well remember that, when the journals of an Illustrious Person were published and it appeared that a royal party had "taken luncheon" on a hill, it was stoutly contended in Whig circles that the servants had taken the luncheon to the hill where their masters ate it; and, when a close examination of the text proved this gloss to be impossible, it was decided that the original must have been written in German, and that it had been translated by some one who did not know the English idiom. To "ride," meaning to travel in a carriage, was, and I hope still is, regarded as the peculiar property of my friend Pennialinus;[12] and I remember the mild sensation caused in a Whig house when a neighbour who had driven over to luncheon declined to wash her hands on the ground that she had "ridden in gloves." The vehicle which was invented by a Lord Chancellor and called after his name was scrupulously pronounced so as to rhyme with groom, and any one indiscreet enough to say that he had ridden in "the Row" would probably have been asked if he had gone round by "the Zoo." [12] A character invented by Mr. William Cory. "Cherry pie and apple pie; all the rest are tarts," was an axiom carefully instilled into the young gastronomer; while "to pass" the mustard was bound in the same bundle of abominations as "I'll trouble you," "May I assist you?" "Not any, thank you," and "A very small piece."