light, and
somewhat insignificant, but not, perhaps, ill-formed either for active
enterprise or for muscular effort. Such, reader, is the picture of the
young prodigal who occupied the apartments I have described, and such
(though somewhat flattered by partiality) is a portrait of Morton
Devereux, six months after his arrival in town.

The door was suddenly thrown open with that unhesitating rudeness by
which our friends think it necessary to signify the extent of their
familiarity; and a young man of about eight-and-twenty, richly dressed,
and of a countenance in which a dissipated _nonchalance_ and an
aristocratic _hauteur_ seemed to struggle for mastery, abruptly entered.

"What! ho, my noble royster," cried he, flinging himself upon a
chair, "still suffering from St. John's Burgundy! Fie, fie, upon your
apprenticeship!--why, before I had served half your time, I could take
my three bottles as easily as the sea took the good ship 'Revolution,'
swallow them down with a gulp, and never show the least sign of them the
next morning!"

"I really believe you, most magnanimous Tarleton. Providence gives to
each of its creatures different favours,--to one wit, to the other a
capacity for drinking. A thousand pities that they are never united!"

"So bitter, Count!--ah, what will ever cure you of sarcasm?"

"A wise man by conversation, or fools by satiety."

"Well, I dare say that is witty enough, but I never admire fine
things of a morning. I like letting my faculties live till night in a
deshabille; let us talk easily and sillily of the affairs of the day.
_Imprimis_, will you stroll to the New Exchange? There is a black eye
there that measures out ribbons, and my green ones long to flirt with
it."

"With all my heart--and in return you shall accompany me to Master
Powell's puppet-show."

"You speak as wisely as Solomon himself in the puppet-show. I own that
I love that sight: 'tis a pleasure to the littleness of human nature
to see great things abased by mimicry; kings moved by bobbins, and the
pomps of the earth personated by Punch."

"But how do you like sharing the mirth of the groundlings, the filthy
plebeians, and letting them see how petty are those distinctions which
you value so highly, by showing them how heartily you can laugh at such
distinctions yourself? Allow, my superb Coriolanus, that one purchases
pride by the loss of consistency."

"Ah, Devereux, you poison my enjoyment by the mere word 'plebei