by being well
dressed, not finely dressed, that a gentleman should be distinguished.
You must frequent 'les spectacles', which expense I shall willingly
supply. You must play 'a des petits jeux de commerce' in mixed companies;
that article is trifling; I shall pay it cheerfully. All the other
articles of pocket-money are very inconsiderable at Paris, in comparison
of what they are here, the silly custom of giving money wherever one
dines or sups, and the expensive importunity of subscriptions, not being
yet introduced there. Having thus reckoned up all the decent expenses of
a gentleman, which I will most readily defray, I come now to those which
I will neither bear nor supply. The first of these is gaming, of which,
though I have not the least reason to suspect you, I think it necessary
eventually to assure you, that no consideration in the world shall ever
make me pay your play debts; should you ever urge to me that your honor
is pawned, I should most immovably answer you, that it was your honor,
not mine, that was pawned; and that your creditor might e'en take the
pawn for the debt.

Low company, and low pleasures, are always much more costly than liberal
and elegant ones. The disgraceful riots of a tavern are much more
expensive, as well as dishonorable, than the sometimes pardonable
excesses in good company. I must absolutely hear of no tavern scrapes and
squabbles.

I come now to another and very material point; I mean women; and I will
not address myself to you upon this subject, either in a religious, a
moral, or a parental style. I will even lay aside my age, remember yours,
and speak to you as one man of pleasure, if he had parts too, would speak
to another. I will by no means pay for whores, and their never-failing
consequences, surgeons; nor will I, upon any account, keep singers,
dancers, actresses, and 'id genus omne'; and, independently of the
expense, I must tell you, that such connections would give me, and all
sensible people, the utmost contempt for your parts and address; a young
fellow must have as little sense as address, to venture, or more properly
to sacrifice, his health and ruin his fortune, with such sort of
creatures; in such a place as Paris especially, where gallantry is both
the profession and the practice of every woman of fashion. To speak
plainly, I will not forgive your understanding c--------s and p-------s;
nor will your constitution forgive them you. These distempers, as well as