As a sporting man, and a man of fashion, I need not say that I took in the "Flare-up," regularly; ay, and wrote one or two trifles in that celebrated publication (one of my papers, which Tagrag subscribed for me, Philo-pestitiæamicus, on the proper sauce for teal and widgeon; and the other, signed Scru-tatos, on the best means of cultivating the kidney species of that vegetable, made no small noise at the time, and got me in the paper a compliment from the editor). I was a constant reader of the Notices to Correspondents, and my early education having been rayther neglected (for I was taken from my studies and set, as is the custom in our trade, to practise on a sheep's-head at the tender age of nine years, before I was allowed to venture on the human countenance), I say, being thus curtailed and cut off in my classical learning, I must confess I managed to pick up a pretty smattering of genteel information from that treasury of all sorts of knowledge, at least sufficient to make me a match in learning for all the noblemen and gentlemen who came to our house. Well, on looking over the "Flare-up" notices to correspondents, I read, one day last April, among the notices, as follows:— "'Automodon.' We do not know the precise age of Mr. Baker, of Covent Garden Theatre; nor are we aware if that celebrated son of Thespis is a married man. "'Ducks and Green-peas' is informed, that when A plays his rook to B's second Knight's square, and B, moving two squares with his Queen's pawn, gives check to his adversary's Queen, there is no reason why B's Queen should not take A's pawn, if B be so inclined. "'F. L. S.' We have repeatedly answered the question about Madame Vestris: her maiden name was Bartolozzi, and she married the son of Charles Mathews, the celebrated comedian. "'Fair Play.' The best amateur billiard and écarté player in England, is Coxe Tuggeridge Coxe, Esq., of Portland Place, and Tuggeridgeville: Jonathan, who knows his play, can only give him two in a game of a hundred: and at the cards, _no_ man is his superior. Verbum sap. "'Scipio Americanus' is a blockhead." I read this out to the Count and Tagrag, and both of them wondered how the Editor of that tremendous Flare-up should get such information; and both agreed that the Baron, who still piqued himself absurdly on his play, would be vastly annoyed by seeing me preferred thus to himself. We read him the paragraph, and preciously angry he was. "Id is," he cried, "the tables (or 'de _dabels_,' as he called them), de horrid dabels; gom viz me to London, and dry a slate-table, and I vill beat you." We all roared at this; and the end of the dispute was, that, just to satisfy the fellow, I agreed to play his Excellency at slate-tables, or any tables he chose.