Case 2 was that of Mademoiselle de Saugrenue, 'the interesting young
Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty ringlets,' who lived for nothing
at a boardinghouse at Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and
being there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer,
the dear girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a
cash-box, with which she fled to London. How would you account for the
prodigious benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French
lady? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming face?--Bah! Do ladies
love others for having faces and black hair?--she said SHE WAS A
RELATION OF de Saugrenue: talked of her ladyship her aunt, and of
herself as a De Saugrenue. The honest boarding-house people were at her
feet at once. Good, honest, simple, lord-loving children of Snobland.
Finally, there was the case of 'the Right Honourable Mr. Vernon,' at
York. The Right Honourable was the son of a nobleman, and practised
on an old lady. He procured from her dinners, money, wearing-apparel,
spoons, implicit credence, and an entire refit of linen. Then he cast
his nets over a family of father, mother, and daughters, one of whom he
proposed to marry. The father lent him money, the mother made jams and
pickles for him, the daughters vied with each other in cooking dinners
for the Right Honourable--and what was the end? One day the traitor
fled, with a teapot and a basketful of cold victuals. It was the 'Right
Honourable' which baited the hook which gorged all these greedy, simple
Snobs. Would they have been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is
there, my dear sir, who would take in you and me, were we ever so ill to
do, and comfort us, and clothe us, and give us her money, and her silver
forks? Alas and alas! what mortal man that speaks the truth can hope
for such a landlady? And yet, all these instances of fond and credulous
Snobbishness have occurred in the same week's paper, with who knows how
many score more?
Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty little note
sealed with a pretty little butterfly--bearing a northern postmark--and
to the following effect:--
'19th November.
'Mr. Punch,--'Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, we are very
anxious to know under what class of that respectable fraternity you
would designate us.
'We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our father is
HONESTLY AND TRULY of a very good family (you will say it is Snobbish
to mention that, but I wish to state the plain fact); our maternal
grandfather was an Earl.' (1)
'We CAN afford to take in a stamped edition of YOU, and all Dickens'
works as fast as they come out, but we do NOT keep such a thing as a
PEERAGE or even a BARONETAGE in the house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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