this
very moment--it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder
good-for-nothing is swilling his wine--the little ones are at Laura's
knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say--'Pray God
bless Papa.'

When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is
utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him.

Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler.

How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got
into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director;
how the Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,--all this
I could tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction.
They returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs.
Chuff came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had
saved), and paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington.
His name is taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we
meet, he crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as
I should be sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet
face.

Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence
of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:--Captain Shindy is afraid
to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving
Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for
his private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the
library-waiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him
Vol. II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from
table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having
for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall--the cotton
one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back
by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued
telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any
more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer
publicly spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the
fire, for the admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob
has been brought back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John
has been spared a journey or a scolding--say, friends and brethren if
these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain?

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS

How it is that we have come to No. 45 of