After a parley as to price, Lady C---- hinted that she doubted its being perfectly sweet: the very suspicion of vending an unsavoury article roused the old she-dragon at once into one of the most terrific passions imaginable, and directing all her ire against the ladies, she poured forth a volley of abuse fiery and appalling as the lava of a volcano, which concluded as follows.--"Not sweet, you ----," said the offended deity; "how can I answer for its sweetness, when you have been tickling his gills with your stinking paws 1 " _(See Plate.)_ The marchioness retreated at the first burst of the storm, but Lady C----continued to provoke the old naiad of the shambles, till she had fully satisfied her humour. Again safely escorted home by the liveried Mercury, the ladies thought to have enjoyed their joke in perfect security; but what was their astonishment, when on meeting the marquis and a select party at dinner, to find the identical fish served up at their own table, and the marquis amusing his friends by relating the whole circumstances of the frolic, as having occurred to two ladies of distinction during the laughter-loving days of Charles the Second. I need not animadvert upon the peculiar situation of the ladies, who, blushing through a crimson veil of the deepest hue, bore the raillery of the party assembled with as much good sense as good nature; acknowledging the frolic, and joining in the laugh the joke produced. Beneath, you have one of our facetious friend Bob Transit's humorous sketches of an incident said to have occurred near B---- H----: in which an eccentric ~304~~lady chose to call up the servants in the dead of the night, order out the carriage, and mounting the box herself, insisted upon giving the footman, who had been somewhat tardy in leaving his bed, a gentle airing in his shirt. [Illustration: page304] CHARACTERS ON THE BEACH AND STEYNE, BRIGHTON. _On Bathing and Bathers--Advantages of Shampooing--French Decency--Brighton Politeness--Sketches of Character--The Banker's Widow--Miss Jefferies--Mrs. F----l--Peter Paragraph, the London Correspondent--Jack Smith--The French Consul--Paphian Divinities--C---- L----, Esq.-- Squeeze into the Libraries--The new Plunging Bath--Chain Pier--Cockney Comicalities--Royal Gardens--The Club House._