style; why, the stationer's bill would run away with all the
profits."

"Never mind the profits, you avaricious Jew," replied Lawless. "Yes,
I've been trying effects, as the painters call it--putting down two
or three beginnings to find out which looked the most like the time of
day--you understand?"

"Two or three?" repeated Coleman, "six or seven rather, _voyons_. 'Mr.
Lawless presents his affections to Miss Fairlegh, and requests the
hon....' Not a bad ~362~~ idea, an offer in the third person--the only
case in which a third person would not be _de trop_ in such an affair."

"Eh! yes, I did the respectful when I first started, you know, but I
soon dropped that sort of thing when I got warm; you'll see, I stepped
out no end afterwards."

"'Honoured Miss,'" continued Coleman, reading, "'My sentiments, that is,
your perfections, your splendid action, your high breeding, and the many
slap-up points that may be discerned in you by any man that has an eye
for a horse...'"

"Ah! that was where I spoiled it," sighed Lawless.

"Here's a very pretty one," resumed Freddy. "'Adorable and adored Miss
Fanny Fairlegh, seeing you as I do with the eyes' (Why she would not
think you saw her with your nose, would she?)' of fond affection,
probably would induce me to overlook any unsoundness or disposition to
vice...'"

"That one did not turn out civilly, you see," said Lawless, "or else it
wasn't such a bad beginning."

"Here's a better," rejoined Coleman. "'Exquisitely beautiful
Fanny, fairest of that lovely sex, which to distinguish it from us
rough-and-ready fox-hunters, who, when once we get our heads at any of
the fences of life, go at it, never mind how stiff it may be (matrimony
has always appeared to me one of the stiffest), and generally contrive
to find ourselves on the other side, with our hind legs well under
us;--a sex, I say, which to distinguish it from our own, is called
the fair sex, a stock of which I never used to think any great things,
reckoning them only fit to canter round the parks with, until I saw you
brought out, when I at once perceived that your condition--that is, my
feelings--were so inexpressible that...!'" "Ah!" interposed Lawless,
"that's where I got bogged, sank in over the fetlocks, and had to give
it up as a bad job."

"In fact your feelings became too many for you," returned Coleman; "but
what have we here?--verses, by all that's glorious!"

"No, no! I'm not going to let you read them