. But they will, sir. Some of those bankers are as
high and mighty as the oldest families. They marry noblemen's daughters,
by Jove, and think nothing is too good for 'em. But I should go, if
I were you, Arthur. I dined there a couple of months ago; and the
bankeress said something about you: that you and her nephew were much
together, that you were sad wild dogs, I think--something of that sort.
'Gad, ma'am,' says I, 'boys will be boys.' 'And they grow to be men!'
says she, nodding her head. Queer little woman, devilish pompous. Dinner
confoundedly long, stoopid, scientific."

The old gentleman was on this day inclined to be talkative and
confidential, and I set down some more remarks which he made concerning
my friends. "Your Indian Colonel," says he, "seems a worthy man."
The Major quite forgot having been in India himself, unless he was in
company with some very great personage. "He don't seem to know much of
the world, and we are not very intimate. Fitzroy Square is a dev'lish
long way off for a fellow to go for a dinner, and entre nous, the dinner
is rather queer and the company still more so. It's right for you who
are a literary man to see all sorts of people; but I'm different, you
know, so Newcome and I are not very thick together. They say he wanted
to marry your friend to Lady Anne's daughter, an exceedingly fine girl;
one of the prettiest girls come out this season. I hear the young men
say so. And that shows how monstrous ignorant of the world Colonel
Newcome is. His son could no more get that girl than he could marry one
of the royal princesses. Mark my words, they intend Miss Newcome for
Lord Kew. Those banker fellows are wild after grand marriages. Kew will
sow his wild oats, and they'll marry her to him; or if not to him, to
some man of high rank. His father Walham was a weak young man; but his
grandmother, old Lady Kew, is a monstrous clever old woman, too severe
with her children, one of whom ran away and married a poor devil without
a shilling. Nothing could show a more deplorable ignorance of the world
than poor Newcome supposing his son could make such a match as that with
his cousin. Is it true that he is going to make his son an artist? I
don't know what the dooce the world is coming to. An artist! By gad,
in my time a fellow would as soon have thought of making his son a
hairdresser, or a pastrycook, by gad." And the worthy Major gives
his nephew two fingers, and trots off to the next club in St