bliged to talk of a place
which belongs to one's elder brother. Many questions were likewise asked
about the dowager and her Scotch relatives, the Plumduffs, about whom
Lady Pash knew a great deal, having seen them at Court and at Lord
Melville's. Of course she had seen them at Court and at Lord Melville's,
as she might have seen thousands of Scotchmen besides; but what mattered
it to me, who care not a jot for old Lady Fitz-Boodle? "When you write,
you'll say you met an old friend of her Ladyship's," says Mrs. Berry,
and I faithfully promised I would when I wrote; but if the New Post
Office paid us for writing letters (as very possibly it will soon), I
could not be bribed to send a line to old Lady Fitz.

In a word, I found that Berry, like many simple fellows before him, had
made choice of an imperious, ill-humoured, and underbred female for a
wife, and could see with half an eye that he was a great deal too much
her slave.

The struggle was not over yet, however. Witness that little encounter
before dinner; and once or twice the honest fellow replied rather
smartly during the repast, taking especial care to atone as much
as possible for his wife's inattention to Jack and Mrs. Muchit, by
particular attention to those personages, whom he helped to everything
round about and pressed perpetually to champagne; he drank but little
himself, for his amiable wife's eye was constantly fixed on him.

Just at the conclusion of the dessert, madame, who had bouded Berry
during dinner-time, became particularly gracious to her lord and master,
and tenderly asked me if I did not think the French custom was a good
one, of men leaving table with the ladies.

"Upon my word, ma'am," says I, "I think it's a most abominable
practice."

"And so do I," says Cutler.

"A most abominable practice! Do you hear THAT?" cries Berry, laughing,
and filling his glass.

"I'm sure, Frank, when we are alone you always come to the
drawing-room," replies the lady, sharply.

"Oh, yes! when we're alone, darling," says Berry, blushing; "but now
we're NOT alone--ha, ha! Anatole, du Bordeaux!"

"I'm sure they sat after the ladies at Carlton House; didn't they, Lady
Pash?" says Dobus, who likes his glass.

"THAT they did!" says my Lady, giving him a jolly nod.

"I racklackt," exclaims Captain Goff, "when I was in the Mauritius, that
Mestress MacWhirter, who commanded the Saxty-Sackond, used to say, 'Mac,
if ye want to get lively, ye'll not stop for