In many cases it would be a very pardonable blunder in a foreigner to take the valet for the lord, especially if he happened to imagine that _courtesy_ and a good address were the distinguishing marks of a man of quality. This test would be by no means applicable in England, where these advantages are not to be found among the majority of persons of the higher classes; though there are some brilliant exceptions, and their absence is often redeemed by admirable and solid qualities. In the men, indeed, their arrogance, often amounting to rudeness, and their high opinion of themselves, do not sit so ill; but in the women, it is as disgusting and repulsive, as, in some other of their countrywomen, the vain effort to ape continental grace and vivacity. I once before praised the admirable spirit of adaptation and arrangement which pervades all establishments here. As a sample, I will give you the organization of the card-room in the Traveller's Club-house. This is not properly a gaming club, but, as its name denotes, one expressly for travellers. Such only can become actual members of it as have travelled a certain prescribed number of miles on the Continent, or have made yet more distant expeditions. In spite of this, one does not perceive that they are become less English, which, however, I do not quarrel with. At the Travellers' Club, then, short whist and ecarté are played very high, but no hazard. In our Casinos, 'Ressources,' and so on, a man who wishes to play must first laboriously seek out a party; and if the tables are full, may have to wait hours till one is vacant. Here it is a law that every one who comes may take his seat at any table at which a rubber has just ended, when he who has played two consecutive rubbers must give up his place. It is pleasant, too, to a man who has lost, and fancies that the luck goes with the place, to quit it and seek better fortune in another.