'Corrupt old brute! he has got the price of his vote at the last division.' 'Oh, Mr.Blank, what a charming book you have written!' Mr.Blank passes out of hearing--and you ask what his book is about.

'To tell you the truth, I haven't read it.

Hush! he's received at Court; one must say these things.' The other day a friend took me to a grand dinner at the Lord Mayor's.

I accompanied him first to his club; many distinguished guests met there before going to the dinner.

Heavens, how they spoke of the Lord Mayor! One of them didn't know his name, and didn't want to know it; another wasn't certain whether he was a tallow-chandler or a button-maker; a third, who had met with him somewhere, described him as a damned ass; a fourth said, 'Oh, don't be hard on him; he's only a vulgar old Cockney, without an _h_ in his whole composition.' A chorus of general agreement followed, as the dinner-hour approached: 'What a bore!' I whispered to my friend, 'Why do they go ?' He answered, 'You see, one must do this sort of thing.' And when we got to the Mansion House, they did that sort of thing with a vengeance! When the speech-making set in, these very men who had been all expressing their profound contempt for the Lord Mayor behind his back, now flattered him to his face in such a shamelessly servile way, with such a meanly complete insensibility to their own baseness, that I did really and literally turn sick.