irly overcome, and said to me, "George
Fitz-Boodle, if you give up smoking for a year, I will marry you."

I swore I would, of course, and went home and flung four pounds of
Hudson's cigars, two meerschaum pipes that had cost me ten guineas
at the establishment of Mr. Gattie at Oxford, a tobacco-bag that Lady
Fitz-Boodle had given me BEFORE her marriage with my father (it was the
only present that I ever had from her or any member of the Flintskinner
family), and some choice packets of Varinas and Syrian, into the lake
in Boodle Park. The weapon amongst them all which I most regretted
was--will it be believed?--the little black doodheen which had been the
cause of the quarrel between Lord Martingale and me. However, it went
along with the others. I would not allow my groom to have so much as a
cigar, lest I should be tempted hereafter; and the consequence was that
a few days after many fat carps and tenches in the lake (I must confess
'twas no bigger than a pond) nibbled at the tobacco, and came floating
on their backs on the top of the water quite intoxicated. My conversion
made some noise in the county, being emphasized as it were by this fact
of the fish. I can't tell you with what pangs I kept my resolution; but
keep it I did for some time.

With so much beauty and wealth, Mary M'Alister had of course many
suitors, and among them was the young Lord Dawdley, whose mamma has
previously been described in her gown of red satin. As I used to thrash
Dawdley at school, I thrashed him in after-life in love; he put up with
his disappointment pretty well, and came after a while and shook hands
with me, telling me of the bets that there were in the county, where the
whole story was known, for and against me. For the fact is, as I must
own, that Mary M'Alister, the queerest, frankest of women, made no
secret of the agreement, or the cause of it.

"I did not care a penny for Orson," she said, "but he would go on
writing me such dear pretty verses that at last I couldn't help saying
yes. But if he breaks his promise to me, I declare, upon my honor, I'll
break mine, and nobody's heart will be broken either."

This was the perfect fact, as I must confess, and I declare that it was
only because she amused me and delighted me, and provoked me, and made
me laugh very much, and because, no doubt, she was very rich, that I had
any attachment for her.

"For heaven's sake, George," my father said to me, as I quitted home to
follow my