Whackum. Look you there, now! Well, all Europe cannot show a knot of finer wits and braver gentlemen.

Dingboy. Faith, they are pretty smart men.

SHADWELL: Scourers.

The world of Bath was of a sudden delighted by the intelligence that Lord Mauleverer had gone to Beauvale (the beautiful seat possessed by that nobleman in the neighbourhood of Bath), with the intention of there holding a series of sumptuous entertainments.

The first persons to whom the gay earl announced his “hospitable purpose” were Mr. and Miss Brandon; he called at their house, and declared his resolution of not leaving it till Lucy (who was in her own room) consented to gratify him with an interview, and a promise to be the queen of his purposed festival. Lucy, teased by her father, descended to the drawing-room, spiritless and pale; and the earl, struck by the alteration of her appearance, took her hand, and made his inquiries with so interesting and feeling a semblance of kindness as prepossessed the father for the first time in his favour, and touched even the daughter. So earnest, too, was his request that she would honour his festivities with her presence, and with so skilful a flattery was it conveyed, that the squire undertook to promise the favour in her name; and when the earl, declaring he was not contented with that promise from another, appealed to Lucy herself, her denial was soon melted into a positive though a reluctant assent.

Delighted with his success, and more struck with Lucy’s loveliness, refined as it was by her paleness, than he had ever been before, Mauleverer left the house, and calculated, with greater accuracy than he had hitherto done, the probable fortune Lucy would derive from her uncle.

No sooner were the cards issued for Lord Mauleverer’s fete than nothing else was talked of among the circles which at Bath people were pleased to term “the World.”

But in the interim caps are making, and talk flowing, at Bath; and when it was found that Lord Mauleverer — the good-natured Lord Mauleverer, the obliging Lord Mauleverer — was really going to be exclusive, and out of a thousand acquaintances to select only eight hundred, it is amazing how his popularity deepened into respect. Now, then, came anxiety and triumph; she who was asked turned her back upon her who was not — old friendships dissolved — Independence wrote letters for a ticket — and, as England is the freest country in the world, all the Mistresses Hodges and Snodges begged to take the liberty of bringing their youngest daughters.

Leaving the enviable Mauleverer — the god-like occasion of so much happiness and woe, triumph and dejection — ascend with us, O reader, into those elegant apartments over the hairdresser’s shop, tenanted by Mr. Edward Pepper and Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. The time was that of evening; Captain Clifford had been dining with his two friends; the cloth was removed, and conversation was flowing over a table graced by two bottles of port, a bowl of punch for Mr. Pepper’s especial discussion, two dishes of filberts, another of devilled biscuits, and a fourth of three Pomarian crudities, which nobody touched.

The hearth was swept clean, the fire burned high and clear, the curtains were let down, and the light excluded. Our three adventurers and their rooms seemed the picture of comfort. So thought Mr. Pepper; for, glancing round the chamber and putting his feet upon the fender, he said —

“Were my portrait to be taken, gentlemen, it is just as I am now that I would be drawn!”

“And,” said Tomlinson, cracking his filberts — Tomlinson was fond of filberts — “were I to choose a home, it is in such a home as this that I would be always quartered.”

“Ah, gentlemen,” said Clifford, who had been for some time silent, “it is more than probable that both your wishes may be heard, and that ye may be drawn, quartered, and something else, too, in the very place of your desert!”

“Well,” said Tomlinson, smiling gently, “I am happy to hear you jest again, Captain, though it be at our expense.”

“Expense!” echoed Ned; “ay, there’s the rub! Who the deuce is to pay the expense of our dinner?”

“And our dinners for the last week?” added Tomlinson. “This empty nut looks ominous; it certainly has one grand feature strikingly resembling my pockets.”

“Heigho!” sighed Long Ned, turning his waistcoat commodities inside-out with a significant gesture, while the accomplished Tomlinson, who was fond of plaintive poetry, pointed to the disconsolate vacua, and exclaimed,

“E’en while Fashion’s brightest arts decoy,

The heart desponding asks if this be joy!”

“In truth, gentlemen,” added he, solemnly depositing his nut-crackers on the table, and laying, as was his wont when about to be luminous, his right finger on his sinister palm — “in truth, gentlemen, affairs are growing serious with us, and it becomes necessary forthwith to devise some safe means of procuring a decent competence.”

“I am dunned confoundedly,” cried Ned.

“And,” continued Tomlinson, “no person of delicacy likes to be subjected to the importunity of vulgar creditors; we must therefore raise money for the liquidation of our debts. Captain Lovett, or Clifford, whichever you be styled, we call upon you to assist us in so praiseworthy a purpose.”

Clifford turned his eyes first on one and then on the other; but made no answer.

“Imprimis,” said Tomlinson, “let us each produce our stock in hand; for my part, I am free to confess — for what shame is there in that poverty which our exertions are about to relieve? — that I have only two guineas four shillings and threepence halfpenny!”

“And I,” said Long Ned, taking a China ornament from the chimney-piece, and emptying its contents in his hand, “am in a still more pitiful condition. See, I have only three shillings and a bad guinea. I gave the guinea to the waiter at the White Hart yesterday; the dog brought it back to me today, and I was forced to change it with my last shiner. Plague take the thing! I bought it of a Jew for four shillings, and have lost one pound five by the bargain.”

“Fortune frustrates our wisest schemes,” rejoined the moralizing Augustus. “Captain, will you produce the scanty wrecks of your wealth?”

Clifford, still silent, threw a purse on the table. Augustus carefully emptied it, and counted out five guineas; an expression of grave surprise settled on Tomlinson’s contemplative brow, and extending the coins towards Clifford, he said in a melancholy tone —

“All your pretty ones?

Did you say all?”

A look from Clifford answered the interesting interrogatory. “These, then,” said Tomlinson, collecting in his hand the common wealth — “these, then, are all our remaining treasures!” As he spoke, he jingled the coins mournfully in his palm, and gazing upon them with a parental air, exclaimed —

“Alas! regardless of their doom, the little victims play!”

“Oh, d —— it!” said Ned, “no sentiment! Let us come to business at once. To tell you the truth, I, for one, am tired of this heiress-hunting, and a man may spend a fortune in the chase before he can win one.”

“You despair then, positively, of the widow you have courted so long?” asked Tomlinson.

“Utterly,” rejoined Ned, whose addresses had been limited solely to the dames of the middling class, and who had imagined himself at one time, as he punningly expressed it, sure of a dear rib from Cheapside — “utterly; she was very civil to me at first, but when I proposed, asked me, with a blush, for my ‘references.’ ‘References?’ said I; ‘why, I want the place of your husband, my charmer, not your footman!’ The dame was inexorable, said she could not take me without a character, but hinted that I might be the lover instead of the bridegroom; and when I scorned the suggestion, and pressed for the parson, she told me point-blank, with her unlucky city pronunciation, ‘that she would never accompany me to the halter!’”

“Ha, ha, ha!” cried Tomlinson, laughing. “One can scarcely blame the good lady for that. Love rarely brooks such permanent ties. But have you no other lady in your eye?”

“Not for matrimony — all roads but those to the church!” While this dissolute pair were thus conversing, Clifford, leaning against the wainscot, listened to them with a sick and bitter feeling of degradation, which till of late days had been a stranger to his breast. He was at length aroused from his silence by Ned, who, bending forward and placing his hand upon Clifford’s knee, said abruptly —

“In short, Captain, you must lead us once more to glory. We have still our horses, and I keep my mask in my pocketbook, together with my comb. Let us take the road tomorrow night, dash across the country towards Salisbury, and after a short visit in that neighbourhood to a band of old friends of mine — bold fellows, who would have stopped the devil himself when he was at work upon Stonehenge — make a tour by Reading and Henley and end by a plunge into London.”

“You have spoken well, Ned!” said Tomlinson, approvingly. “Now, noble captain, your opinion?”

“Messieurs,” answered Clifford, “I highly approve of your intended excursion, and I only regret that I cannot be your companion.”

“Not! and why?” cried Mr. Pepper, amazed.

“Because I have business here that renders it impossible; perhaps, before long, I may join you in London.”

“Nay,” said Tomlinson, “there is no necessity for our going to London, if you wish to remain here; nor need we at present recur to so desperate an expedient as the road — a little quiet business at Bath will answer our purpose; and for m............