The position obtained for Titmouse by the masterly genius of Mr. Bladdery Pip, was secured and strengthened by much more substantial claims upon the respect of society than those derived from literary genius. Rumor is a dame always looking at objects through very strong magnifying-glasses; and who, guided by what she saw, soon gave out that Titmouse was patron of three boroughs; had a clear rent-roll of thirty thousand a-year; and had already received nearly a hundred thousand pounds in hard cash from the previous proprietor of his estates, as a compensation for the back rents, which that usurper had been for so many years in the receipt of. Then he was--in truth and fact--very near in succession to the ancient and distinguished Barony of Drelincourt, and the extensive estates thereto annexed. He was young; by no means ill-looking; and was--unmarried. Under the mask of _naïveté_ and eccentricity, it was believed that he concealed great natural acuteness, for the purpose of ascertaining who were his real and who only his pretended friends and well-wishers, and that his noble relatives had given in to his little scheme, for the purpose of aiding him in the important discovery upon which he was bent. Infinite effect was thus given to the earl's introductions. Wherever Titmouse went, he found new and delightful acquaintances; and invitations to dinners, balls, routs, soirées, came showering daily into his rooms at the Albany, where also were left innumerable cards, bearing names of very high fashion. All who had daughters or sisters in the market, paid eager and persevering court to Mr. Titmouse, and still more so to the Earl of Dreddlington and Lady Cecilia, his august _sponsors_; so that--such being the will of that merry jade Fortune--they who had once regarded him as an object only of shuddering disgust and ineffable contempt, and had been disposed to order their servants to show him out again into the streets, were now, in a manner, _magnified and made honorable_ by means of their connection with him; or rather, society, through his means, had become suddenly sensible of the commanding qualities and pretensions of the Earl of Dreddlington and the Lady Cecilia. In the ball-room--at Almack's even--how many young men, handsome, accomplished, and of the highest personal consequence and rank, applied in vain for the hand of haughty beauty, which Mr. Titmouse had only to ask for, and obtain! Whose was the opera-box into which he might not drop as a welcome visitor, and be seen lounging in envied familiarity with its fair and brilliant inmates? Were there not mothers of high fashion, of stately pride, of sounding rank, who would have humbled themselves before Titmouse, if thereby he could have been brought a suitor to the feet of one of their delicate and beautiful daughters? But it was not over the fair sex alone that the magic of Mr. Titmouse's name and pretensions had obtained this great and