total
deprivation of the staff of life, and moreover, in my country, it is
customary for the husband-elect to take his meals apart from his bride
that is to be; nor does she ever touch food until he has previously
assuaged his pangs of hunger. Notwithstanding, she would not be pacified
until I had bestowed upon her a gold and turquoise ring of best English
workmanship, as an olive-branch and calumet of peace.

But, outside Porticobello House, I have been close as wax on the subject
of my flowery chains, and it was especially inconceivable that I should
inform my friend HOWARD of same, since he has frequently bantered me in
wonderment that a respectable Oriental magnate should reside in such a
very ordinary and third-rate boarding establishment, where it was an
impossibility to gain any real familiarity with smart and refined
English society.

[Illustration: "SOME HAUGHTY MASCULINE MIGHT INSULT HER UNDER MY VERY
NOSE."]

And who knows that if I should introduce Miss JESSIE into company of a
superior caste, some haughty masculine might insult her under my very
nose; and lack-a-daisy! where would she find a protector?

I am certainly oppressed by an increasing dubiety whether Mrs MANKLETOW
is verily such an upper crustacean and _habituee_ of the _beau monde_ as
she did represent herself to be. It is well-nigh incomprehensible that
any individual should seek to appear of a higher social status than
Nature has provided; but my youthful acquaintance, ALLBUTT-INNETT, Jun.,
Esq., informs me that this is a common failing among the English
classes, who fondly imagine that nothing is needed to render a frog the
exact equivalent to an ox except an increased quantity of air,
forgetting that if a frog is abnormally inflated, it is apt to provide
the rather ludicrous catastrophe of exploding from excessive
swellishness!

However _revenons a nos moutons_--_id est_, the dinner party.

I intended to be the early bird at Prince's Square, but, owing to a
rarity among the hansom cabs, did not arrive until most of the guests
were already assembled, being welcomed with effusive hospitality by the
household god and goddess, Mr and Mrs ALLBUTT-INNETT, who begged leave
to present to me all the most distinguished of their friends.

Then--_pop_, and _a l'improviste_--the door was thrown open, and a
butler announced _ore rotundo_, Sir CHETWYND CUMMERBUND, whom, in the
wink of an eye, I recognised as an ex-Justice of the very court in
Calc