up. "I wish you may ever be like him. Oh, the beauty, the
wit, the _petits-soupers_ that used to be here! Longueville was a great
creature, Mr. Vane. I have known him entertain a fine lady in this room,
while her rival was fretting and fuming on the other side of that door."

"Ah, indeed!" said Sir Charles.

"More shame for him," said Mr. Vane.

Here was luck! Pomander seized this opportunity of turning the
conversation to his object. With a malicious twinkle in his eye, he
inquired of Mr. Cibber what made him fancy the house had lost its virtue
in Mr. Vane's hands.

"Because," said Cibber, peevishly, "you all want the true _savoir faire_
nowadays, because there is no _juste milieu,_ young gentlemen. The young
dogs of the day are all either unprincipled heathen, like yourself, or
Amadisses, like our worthy host." The old gentleman's face and manners
were like those of a patriarch, regretting the general decay of virtue,
not the imaginary diminution of a single vice. He concluded with a sigh
that, "The true _preux des dames_ went out with the full periwig; stab
my vitals!"

"A bit of fat, Mr. Cibber?" said Quin, whose jokes were not polished.

"Jemmy, thou art a brute," was the reply.

"You refuse, sir?" said Quin, sternly.

"No, sir!" said Cibber, with dignity. "I accept."

Pomander's eye was ever on the door.

"The old are so unjust to the young," said he. "You pretend that the
Deluge washed away iniquity, and that a rake is a fossil. What," said
he, leaning as it were on every word, "if I bet you a cool hundred
that Vane has a petticoat in that room, and that Mrs. Woffington shall
unearth her?"

The malicious dog thought this was the surest way to effect a dramatic
exposure, because if Peggy found Mabel to all appearances concealed,
Peggy would scold her, and betray herself.

"Pomander!" cried Vane, in great heat; then, checking himself, he said
coolly: "but you all know Pomander."

"None of you," replied that gentleman. "Bring a chair, sir," said he,
authoritatively, to a servant; who, of course, obeyed.

Mrs. Clive looked at him, and thought: "There is something in this!"

"It is for the lady," said he, coolly. Then, leaning over the table,
he said to Mrs. Woffington, with an impudent affectation of friendly
understanding: "I ran her to earth in this house not ten minutes ago.
Of course I don't know who she is! But," smacking his lips, "a rustic
Amaryllis, breathing all May-buds and Meadowsweet."