see that gentleman near the door?" said a woman of rank to her
daughter, who had been brought for the first time to Almack's. "Yes! Who
is he?" replied the young lady. "A person, my dear, who will probably
come and speak to us; and if he enters into conversation, be careful to
give him a favourable impression of you, for he is the celebrated Mr
Brummell." The _debutante_ was the daughter of a duke. It has been said
that Madame de Stael considered herself as having failed to attract his
approval, and that she spoke of it as the greatest _malheur_ which had
occurred to her during her stay in London, the next in point of calamity
being that the Prince had not called on her in person. The Beau
perfectly knew his own value. In reply to a nobleman who charged him
with involving his son in a gaming transaction, he said--"Really I did
my best for the young man; I gave him my arm all the way from White's to
Watier's." However, there can be no doubt that he was very often
intolerably impudent; and, as impudence is always vulgar, he was guilty
of vulgarity. Dining at a gentleman's house in Hampshire, where the
champagne did not happen to suit his taste, he refused his glass when
the servant came to help him a second time, with--"No, thank you, I
don't drink cider!" The following anecdote is rather better known.
"Where were you yesterday, Brummell?" said one of his club friends. "I
think," said he, "I dined in the city." "What! you dined in the city?"
said his friend. "Yes, the man wished me to bring him into notice, and I
desired him to give a dinner, to which I invited Alvanley, Mills,
Pierrepoint, and some others." "All went off well, of course?" said the
friend. "Oh yes! perfectly, except one _mal-a-apropos_: the fellow who
gave the dinner had actually the assurance to seat himself at the
table."

Dining at a large party at the house of an opulent but young member of
London society, he asked the loan of his carriage to take him to Lady
Jersey's that evening. "I am going there," said his entertainer, "and
will be happy to take you." "Still, there is a difficulty," said
Brummell in his most delicate tone. "You do not mean to get up behind,
that would not be quite right in your own carriage; and yet, how would
it do for me to be seen in the same carriage with you?" Brummell's
manner probably laughed off impertinences of this order; for, given
without their colouring from nature, they would have justified an angry
reply. But he se