"You will drive me out of the house, Harriette," said Fred Bentinck; and then put himself into attitudes, looking anxiously and very innocently, from George Brummell to his leather breeches, and from his leather breeches to the looking-glass. "They only came home this morning," proceeded Fred, "and I thought they were rather neat." "Bad knees, my good fellow! bad knees!" said Brummell, shrugging up his shoulders. "They will do very well," I remarked. "Fred Bentinck do start a new subject, for first with my latter end and then with your own, this is quite worn out." "I am sorry," said Fred Bentinck, "very sorry to say that I am afraid you will turn out bad." "What do you call bad?" "Why profligate! and wicked." "Oh! you don't say so? what do you mean by wicked?" "Why--why, in short," continued Frederick--"in short, shall I drive you down to Greenwich to dinner?" "And suppose I should grow wicked on the road?" said I. "Do you know what the Duke of York says of you Fred?" said Brummell. "The Duke of York talks in a very nasty way," said Fred Bentinck, "I--I, for my part, hate all immodest conversation." "And that is the reason why I save up all the odd stories I can learn, for you and for you only," I observed. "And yet you come here every day?" "As to you," said Fred, "you are a beautiful creature, and I come to try to reform you, or else what will become of you when you grow old?" "Age cannot wither me, nor custom stale my infinite variety:" was my reply. "You are mad!" said Fred Bentinck. "And you are monstrous top-heavy! and madness being often light-headedness, I wish you would go mad too." "Apropos, Mr. Brummell," said I turning to him. "I have never yet had time to acknowledge your effusion; and I have the less regret on that score, because I learned from Fanny to-day that you are false-hearted." "Julia and I," said Brummell, "are very old friends, you know." "True," said I, "which, I suppose, accounts for her preference of Horace Beckford." Brummell's pride appeared to take alarm as he inquired if Julia really admired Horace. "I know nothing whatever about it," answered I, "except that I saw them both at the window together to-day." Brummell seized his hat. "Take Fred Bentinck with you," said I. "Come Fred," said Brummell; "but you have not heard what the Duke of York says of you." "I can guess," replied Fred, trying to make his goodnatured face severe and cross. "Oh! he has accused you to your face, I see," reiterated Brummell. "So much the better," said Fred Bentinck, "a man cannot be too virtuous." "Talking of virtue," I remarked to Fred, "really that brother Charles of yours made himself rather too ridiculous by writing those letters to Lady Abdy about his intention to die, in case she continued cruel." "I have no more patience with Charles Bentinck than you have," said Frederick, "particularly with his bringing Lady Abdy to my brother's house. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself."