'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-law. (He was getting more abominably conceited every minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, and spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look at herself; so did Mrs. Sackville--just one, and I thought the glass reflected a very smiling, pretty creature. But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's their place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn it. What I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, is the Club MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at his great person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to be sure! Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for the evening papers; they saw the kitchens--those wonders of art--where the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten thousand shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly perfectly bewildered with pleasure. Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red tabinet. 'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you come, Sackville?' 'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty face looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away. CHAPTER XLIV--CLUB SNOBS Why--Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of his entering the Club were as follows:--