and cast about in search of some one to supply his place at as small
cost to themselves as possible. In a place so replete with money and the
enterprise of youth, little difficulty was anticipated, especially when the
old bait of 'a name' being all that was wanted, 'an ample subscription,' to
defray all expenses figuring in the background, was held out.

CHAPTER V

MR. WAFFLES

Among a host of most meritorious young men--(any of whom would get up
behind a bill for five hundred pounds without looking to see that it wasn't
a thousand)--among a host of most meritorious young men who made their
appearance at Laverick Wells towards the close of Mr. Slocdolager's reign,
was Mr. Waffles; a most enterprising youth, just on the verge of arriving
of age, and into the possession of a very considerable amount of charming
ready money.

Were it not that a 'proud aristocracy,' as Sir Robert Peel called them,
have shown that they can get over any little deficiency of birth if there
is sufficiency of cash, we should have thought it necessary to make the
best of Mr. Waffles' pedigree, but the tide of opinion evidently setting
the other way, we shall just give it as we had it, and let the proud
aristocracy reject him if they like. Mr. Waffles' father, then, was either
a great grazier or a great brazier--which, we are unable to say, 'for a
small drop of ink having fallen,' not 'like dew,' but like a black beetle,
on the first letter of the word in our correspondent's communication, it
may do for either--but in one of which trades he made a 'mint of money,'
and latish on in life married a lady who hitherto had filled the honourable
office of dairy-maid in his house; she was a fine handsome woman and a year
or two after the birth of this their only child, he departed this life,
nearer eighty than seventy, leaving an 'inconsolable,' &c., who
unfortunately contracted matrimony with a master pork-butcher, before she
got the fine flattering white monument up, causing young Waffles to be
claimed for dry-nursing by that expert matron the High Court of Chancery;
who, of course, had him properly educated--where, it is immaterial to
relate, as we shall step on till we find him at college.

Our friend, having proved rather too vivacious for the Oxford Dons, had
been recommended to try the effects of the Laverick Wells, or any other
waters he liked, and had arrived with a couple of hunters and a hack, much
to the satisfaction of the neighbo