en as to fortune since the day when he drove about in a car like a
sea-shell, with a dozen tall fellows, in the Austrian livery, black and
yellow, running before and behind him. You know he claims relationship
to the house of Hapsburg. As for the present, he writes poems, makes
love, is still good-natured, humorous, and odd; is rather unhappily
addicted to wine and borrowing, and rigidly keeps that oath of the
Carthusians which never suffers them to carry any money about them."

"An acquaintance more likely to yield amusement than profit."

"Exactly so. He will favour you with a visit--to-morrow, perhaps, and
you will remember his propensities."

"Ah! who ever forgets a warning that relates to his purse!"

"True!" said Tarleton, sighing. "Alas! my guinea, thou and I have parted
company forever! _vale, vale, inquit Iolas_!"

CHAPTER V.

THE BEAU IN HIS DEN, AND A PHILOSOPHER DISCOVERED.

MR. FIELDING having twice favoured me with visits, which found me from
home, I thought it right to pay my respects to him; accordingly one
morning I repaired to his abode. It was situated in a street which had
been excessively the mode some thirty years back; and the house still
exhibited a stately and somewhat ostentatious exterior. I observed a
considerable cluster of infantine ragamuffins collected round the
door, and no sooner did the portal open to my summons than they pressed
forward in a manner infinitely more zealous than respectful. A servant
in the Austrian livery, with a broad belt round his middle, officiated
as porter. "Look, look!" cried one of the youthful gazers, "look at the
Beau's _keeper_!" This imputation on his own respectability and that of
his master, the domestic seemed by no means to relish; for, muttering
some maledictory menace, which I at first took to be German, but which
I afterwards found to be Irish, he banged the door in the faces of the
intrusive impertinents, and said, in an accent which suited very ill
with his Continental attire,--

"And is it my master you're wanting, Sir?"

"It is."

"And you would be after seeing him immediately?"

"Rightly conjectured, my sagacious friend."

"Fait then, your honour, my master's in bed with a terrible fit of the
megrims."

"Then you will favour me by giving this card to your master, and
expressing my sorrow at his indisposition."

Upon this the orange-coloured lacquey, very quietly reading the address
on the card, and spelling letter by letter