And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr. L----, desirous
to do his lordship 'the honour of the place,' feasts him with the
best victuals money can procure--and my lord finds the entertainment
extravagant and inferior. Extravagant! it was not extravagant to
HIM;--Inferior! Mr. L---- did his best to satisfy those noble jaws,
and my lord receives the entertainment, and dismisses the giver with
a rebuke. It is like a three-tailed Pasha grumbling about an
unsatisfactory backsheesh.
But how should it be otherwise in a country where Lordolatry is part
of our creed, and where our children are brought up to respect the
'Peerage' as the Englishman's second Bible?
CHAPTER IV--THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON SNOBS
Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a true and
authentic story, showing how young aristocratic snobs are reared, and
how early their Snobbishness may be made to bloom. A beautiful and
fashionable lady--(pardon, gracious madam, that your story should
be made public; but it is so moral that it ought to be known to the
universal world)--told me that in her early youth she had a little
acquaintance, who is now indeed a beautiful and fashionable lady too.
In mentioning Miss Snobky, daughter of Sir Snobby Snobky, whose
presentation at Court caused such a sensation, need I say more?
When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the nursery regions, and
to walk off early mornings in St. James's Park, protected by a French
governess and followed by a huge hirsute flunkey in the canary coloured
livery of the Snobkys, she used occasionally in these promenades to meet
with young Lord Claude Lollipop, the Marquis of Sillabub's younger
son. In the very height of the season, from some unexplained cause, the
Snobkys suddenly determined upon leaving town. Miss Snobky spoke to her
female friend and confidante. 'What will poor Claude Lollipop say when
he hears of my absence?' asked the tender-hearted child.
'Oh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the confidante.
'MY DEAR, HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little
fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance,
and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people,
how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all
the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants'
ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,--who have
no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has
of dining with the Emperor of China--yet watched the movements of the
Snobkys with interest and were glad to know when they came to London and
left it.
Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of her mother, Lady
Snobky, from the papers:--
'MISS SNOBKY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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