ample as they were, were upon a far less splendid scale than was supposed. Partly from inclination, and partly through a temporary sense of embarrassment, occasioned by the want of ready money, Titmouse did not spend a tenth part of the sum which it had been everywhere supposed he could disburse freely on all hands: and this occasioned him to be given credit for possessing all that rumor assigned to him; and, moreover, for a disposition not to squander it. He had several times been induced to try his hand at écarté, rouge et noir, and hazard; and had, on the first occasion or two, been a little hurried away, through deference to his distinguished associates, and bled rather freely; but when he found that it was a matter of _business_--that he must _pay_--and felt his purse growing lighter, and his pocket-book, in which he kept his bank-notes, rapidly shrinking in dimensions as the evening wore on, he experienced vivid alarm and disgust, and an increasing disinclination to be "victimized;" and his aversion to play was infinitely strengthened by the frequent cautions of his distinguished and disinterested monitor, the Earl of Dreddlington. But there was one step in Mr. Titmouse's upward progress which he presently took, and which is worthy of special mention; I mean his presentation at court by the Earl of Dreddlington. The necessity for such a move was explained to Titmouse by his illustrious kinsman, a day or two after the appearance of the ordinary official announcement of the next levee. This momentous affair was broached by the earl, one day after dinner, with an air of almost mysterious anxiety and interest. Had, indeed, that stately and solemn old simpleton been instructing his gaping protégé, in the minutely-awful etiquettes requisite for the due discharge of his duties, as an ambassador sent upon a delicate and embarrassing mission to the court of his Sacred Majesty the King of Sulkypunctilio, he could not have appeared more penetrated by a sense of the responsibility he was incurring. He commenced by giving Titmouse a very long history of the origin and progress of such ceremonies, and a minute account of the practical manner of their observance, all of which, however, was to Titmouse only like breathing upon a mirror--passing as quickly out of one ear as it had entered into the other. When, however, the earl came to the point of dress, Titmouse was indeed "a thing all ear, all eye," his little faculties being stimulated to their utmost. The next morning he hurried off to his tailor, to order a court dress. When it had been brought home for trial, and he had put it on, upon returning to his room in his new and imposing costume, and glancing at his figure in the glass, his face fell; and he felt infinitely disappointed. It is to be remembered in candor, however, that he had not on lace ruffles at his coat-cuffs, nor on his shirt-front. After gazing at himself for a few moments in silence, he suddenly