pirits, and smoking cheap tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, so
often shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing yet. He would sink
into utter ruin, but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that
distinguishes the English Snob. There is many a young fellow of the
middle classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and yet
from his desire to be in the fashion, and his admiration of tip-top
swells, and from his ambition to air himself by the side of a Lord's
son, will let Legg make an income out of him; content to pay, so long
as he can enjoy that society. Many a worthy father of a family, when he
hears that his son is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son,
is rather pleased that young Hopeful should be in such good company.

Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours through
Europe, and are to be found at the right places at the right time. Last
year I heard how my young acquaintance, Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going
to see a little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by an
Englishman who did not know a word of the d----language, and hearing
Muff speak it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with
whom there was a dispute about refreshments. It was quite a comfort, the
stranger said, to see an honest English face; and did Muff know where
there was a good place for supper? So those two went to supper, and who
should come in, of all men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg
introduced Macer, and so there came on a little intimacy, and three-card
loo, &c. &c.. Year after year scores of Muffs, in various places in
the world, are victimised by Legg and Macer. The story is so stale, the
trick of seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a
wonder people can be taken in any more: but the temptations of vice
and gentility together are too much for young English Snobs, and those
simple young victims are caught fresh every day. Though it is only to
be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, your true British Snob will
present himself for the honour.

I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes
desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental
aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters
in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and
no French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis. We can all of us laugh
at THAT fellow's pretensions well enough--we who trem