er now, perfectly.' However, it turned out, a few
seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman's memory was rather
treacherous, as he began to have a misgiving that the story had been told
by the Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last time they dined there; but
there appearing, on further consideration, strong circumstantial evidence
tending to show that this couldn't be, inasmuch as the Dowager Lady
Snorflerer had been, on the occasion in question, wholly engrossed by the
egotistical lady, the egotistical gentleman recanted this opinion; and
after laying the story at the doors of a great many great people, happily
left it at last with the Duke of Scuttlewig:--observing that it was not
extraordinary he had forgotten his Grace hitherto, as it often happened
that the names of those with whom we were upon the most familiar footing
were the very last to present themselves to our thoughts.

It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew everybody, but that
scarcely any event of importance or notoriety had occurred for many years
with which they had not been in some way or other connected. Thus we
learned that when the well-known attempt upon the life of George the
Third was made by Hatfield in Drury Lane theatre, the egotistical
gentleman's grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the first man who
collared him; and that the egotistical lady's aunt, sitting within a few
boxes of the royal party, was the only person in the audience who heard
his Majesty exclaim, 'Charlotte, Charlotte, don't be frightened, don't be
frightened; they're letting off squibs, they're letting off squibs.'
When the fire broke out, which ended in the destruction of the two Houses
of Parliament, the egotistical couple, being at the time at a
drawing-room window on Blackheath, then and there simultaneously
exclaimed, to the astonishment of a whole party--'It's the House of
Lords!' Nor was this a solitary instance of their peculiar discernment,
for chancing to be (as by a comparison of dates and circumstances they
afterwards found) in the same omnibus with Mr. Greenacre, when he carried
his victim's head about town in a blue bag, they both remarked a singular
twitching in the muscles of his countenance; and walking down Fish Street
Hill, a few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman said to his
lady--slightly casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument--'There's a
boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible. It's very strange. I don't like