CHAPTER XXXI--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS.
'Why, dear Mr.Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion (to whom I present my best compliments), 'if you found everything so SNOBBISH at the Evergreens, if the pig bored you and the mutton was not to your liking, and Mrs.Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her abominable piano practice,--why did you stay so long ?' Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gallant British soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing nights in plague wards of lazarettos, and other instances of martyrdom?
What do you suppose induced gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of Sabroan, with a hundred and fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds ?--not pleasure, surely.

What causes your respected father to quit his comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most dreary law papers until long past midnight?
, Mademoiselle; duty, which must be done alike by military, or legal, or literary gents.

There's a power of martyrdom in our profession.
You won't believe it?
Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity--a most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face.

Well, then, the fact is, that my chambers, No.

24, Pump Court, Temple, were being painted by the Honourable Society, and Mrs.Slamkin, my laundress, having occasion to go into Durham to see her daughter, who is married, and has presented her with the sweetest little grandson--a few weeks could not be better spent than in rusticating.