But he may be an ass, and yet respected; or
a ruffian, and yet be exceedingly popular; or a rogue, and yet excuses
will be found for him. Snobs will still worship him. Male Snobs will do
him honour, and females look kindly upon him, however hideous he may be.

CHAPTER VI--ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS

Having received a great deal of obloquy for dragging monarchs, princes,
and the respected nobility into the Snob category, I trust to please
everybody in the present chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it
is among the RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that the
greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker
Street, (I am engaged on a life of Baker, founder of this celebrated
street,) I walk in Harley Street (where every other house has a
hatchment), Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Catacombs--a
dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:--I rove round Regent's Park, where the
plaster is patching off the house walls; where Methodist preachers are
holding forth to three little children in the green inclosures, and
puffy valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:--I thread the
doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may
be seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family
coach;--I roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where
all the inhabitants look prim and correct, and the mansions are painted
a faint whity-brown: I lose myself in the new squares and terraces of
the brilliant bran-new Bayswater-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one
and all of these districts the same truth comes across me. I stop before
any house at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are inhabited--O knocker,
you are knocked at--O undressed flunkey, sunning your lazy calves as
you lean against the iron railings, you are paid--by Snobs.' It is
a tremendous thought that; and it is almost sufficient to drive a
benevolent mind to madness to think that perhaps there is not one in
ten of those houses where the 'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing-room
table. Considering the harm that foolish lying book does, I would have
all the copies of it burned, as the barber burned all Quixote's books of
humbugging chivalry.

Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. The Earl of
Loughcorrib lives there: he has fifty thousand a year. A DEJEUNER
DANSANT given at his house last week cost, who knows how much? The
mere flowers for the room and bouquets for the