HOW THE POSSESSOR OF THE DIAMOND IS WHISKED INTO A MAGNIFICENT CHARIOT, AND HAS YET FURTHER GOOD LUCK I sat on the back seat of the carriage, near a very nice young lady, about my dear Mary's age--that is to say, seventeen and three-quarters; and opposite us sat the old Countess and her other grand-daughter--handsome too, but ten years older.

I recollect I had on that day my blue coat and brass buttons, nankeen trousers, a white sprig waist-coat, and one of Dando's silk hats, that had just come in in the year '22, and looked a great deal more glossy than the best beaver.
"And who was that hidjus manster"-- that was the way her Ladyship pronounced,--"that ojous vulgar wretch, with the iron heels to his boots, and the big mouth, and the imitation goold neck-chain, who _steered_ at us so as we got into the carriage ?" How she should have known that Gus's chain was mosaic I can't tell; but so it was, and we had bought it for five-and-twenty and sixpence only the week before at M'Phail's, in St.Paul's Churchyard.

But I did not like to hear my friend abused, and so spoke out for him-- "Ma'am," says I, "that young gentleman's name is Augustus Hoskins.

We live together; and a better or more kind-hearted fellow does not exist." "You are quite right to stand up for your friends, sir," said the second lady; whose name, it appears, was Lady Jane, but whom the grandmamma called Lady Jene.
"Well, upon me conscience, so he is now, Lady Jene; and I like sper't in a young man.

So his name is Hoskins, is it?
I know, my dears, all the Hoskinses in England.