In the morning we assembled at breakfast--a note lay on the table, addressed--"Mrs. Scropps, Budge Row." The girls, one after the other, took it up, read the superscription, and laid it down again. A visiter was announced--a neighbour and kind friend, a man of wealth and importance--what were his first words?--they were the first I had heard from a stranger since my job,--"How are you, Scropps, done up, eh?" Scropps! no obsequiousness, no deference, no respect;--no "my lord, I hope your lordship passed an agreeable night--and how is her ladyship and your lordship's amiable daughters?"--not a bit of it--"How's Mrs. S. and the _gals_?" This was quite natural, all as it _had_ been, all perhaps as it should be--but how unlike what it _was_, only one day before! The very servants, who, when amidst the strapping, stall-fed, gold-laced lacqueys of the Mansion House, (transferred with the chairs and tables from one Lord Mayor to another) dared not speak nor look, nor say their lives were their own, strutted about the house, and banged the doors, and talked of their "_Missis_," as if she had been an apple woman. So much for domestic miseries;--I went out--I was shoved about in Cheapside in the most remorseless manner; my right eye had a narrow escape of being poked out by the tray of a brawny butcher's boy, who, when I civilly remonstrated, turned round, and said, "Vy, I say, who are _you_, I vonder, as is so partiklar about your _hysight_." I felt an involuntary shudder--to-day, thought I, I _am_ John Ebenezer Scropps--two days ago I was Lord Mayor; and so the rencontre ended, evidently to the advantage of the bristly brute. It was however too much for me--the effect of contrast was too powerful, the change was too sudden--and I determined to go to Brighton for a few weeks to refresh myself, and be weaned from my dignity. We went--we drove to the Royal Hotel; in the hall stood one of his Majesty's ministers, one of my former guests, speaking to his lady and daughter: my girls passed close to him--he had handed one of them to dinner the year before, but he appeared entirely to have forgotten her. By and by, when we were going out in a fly to take the air, one of the waiters desired the fly man to pull off, because Sir Something Somebody's carriage could not come up--it was clear that the name of Scropps had lost its influence. We secluded ourselves in a private house, where we did nothing but sigh and look at the sea. We had been totally spoiled for our proper sphere, and could not get into a better; the indifference of our inferiors mortified us, and the familiarity of our equals disgusted us--our potentiality was gone, and we were so much degraded that a puppy of a fellow had the impertinence to ask Jenny if she was going to one of the Old Ship balls. "Of course," said the coxcomb, "I don't mean the 'Almacks,' for they are uncommonly select."