Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? Because SHE CAN'T SHOW--why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, Minns--I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England--in Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue Minister?' Minns: 'Good Ged!' Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of human beings. CHAPTER XXXIX--CLUB SNOBS Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; or St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the fair, and had spent all our money--the sort of awe and anxiety with which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the nature of the entertainment going on within. Man is a Drama--of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and Meanness, and Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it up for a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the way). In a Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance in the room, you have always the chance of watching strangers, and speculating on what is going on within those tents and curtains of their souls, their coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed I am told there are some Clubs in the town where nobody ever speaks to anybody. They sit in the coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each other. Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a man at our Club--large, heavy, middle-aged--gorgeously dressed--rather bald--with lacquered boots--and a boa when he goes out; quiet in demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom I have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he is but a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds income, and his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the contrary, the dirty little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad quality of the beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence for a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when some one pointed the Baronet out to me.