Jon Bee's and big B's, and all the lowest B's of society in station
and character, whose only merit, if such it can be called, is the open
disclaiming of any thing like honour or principle. And after having been
a patron of such a set of wretches, you will end by becoming, according
to circumstances, the object of their vulgar abuse, or the butt of their
coarse ridicule.

"The latter, I understand,"said Lord William, "is pretty much the case
already. A friend of mine was telling me, that one of the precious
brotherhood, on hearing that Joe meant to dispute his bets, asked what
better could be expected from a Foote-mam out of place?"

"No more of that, Hal, if thou lovest him," exclaimed Optimus, who
immediately perceived, by his ~205~~countenance, that the last hit
had been too hard. Much more has been said upon this affair than it is
worth. Let us change the subject.

"By my conscience," exclaimed the lieutenant, "and here's an excellent
episode to wind up the drama with, headed, 'The Foote Ball's farewell
to the Ring:' I'll read it you, with permission, and afterwards,
colonel, you shall have a copy of it for next Sunday's 'Age;' it will
save the magnanimous little B., your accommodating editor, or his locum
tenens, the fat Gent, the trouble of straining their own weak noddles to
produce any more soft attempts at the scandalous and the sarcastic.

"By the honour of my ancestry," rejoined the Gloucestershire colonel,
"do you take me for a reporter to the paper in question?"

"Why not?" said the lieutenant, coolly: "if you are not a reporter and
a supporter too, my gallant friend, by the powers of Poll Kelly but you
are the most ill-used man in his majesty's dominions!"

"Sir, I stand upon my honour," said the colonel, petulantly.

"By the powers, you may, and very easily too," whispered O'Farellan,
in a side speech to his left hand companion; "for it has been trodden
under Foote by others these many months. To be plain with you,
colonel, there are certain big whispers abroad, that you and your noble
associate, the amiable yonder, with that beautiful obliquity of vision,
which is said to have pierced the heart of a northern syren, are the
joint Telegraphs of the Age. Sure no man in his senses can suspect
Messieurs the Conducteurs of knowing any thing of what passes in
polished life, or think--

"Ah, my dear Wewitzer," said Belle Harriet, now Mrs. Goutts, speaking to
the late comedian, of some female friend, "sh