Many things contribute to thin the ranks of our swells.

Many, as we said before, outrun the constable.

Some get fat, some get married, some get tired, and a few get wiser.

There is, however, always a fine pushing crop coming on.

A man like Puffington, who starts a dandy (in contradistinction to a swell), and adheres steadily to clothes--talking eternally of the cuts of coats or the ties of cravats--up to the sober age of forty, must be always falling back on the rising generation for society.
Puffington was not what the old ladies call a profligate young man.