Of the dinner to which we now sat down, I am not going to be a severe critic. The mahogany I hold to be inviolable; but this I will say, that I prefer sherry to marsala when I can get it, and the latter was the wine of which I have no doubt I heard the ‘cloop’ just before dinner. Nor was it particularly good of its kind; however, Mrs. Major Ponto did not evidently know the difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado during the whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of it, leaving the rest for the Major and his guest.

Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family — a thought shabby, but gorgeous in the extreme — lots of magnificent worsted lace, and livery buttons of a very notable size. The honest fellow’s hands, I remarked, were very large and black; and a fine odour of the stable was wafted about the room as he moved to and fro in his ministration. I should have preferred a clean maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, after all, IS more genteel.

From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of pig’s-head mock-turtle soup, of pig’s fry and roast ribs of pork, I am led to imagine that one of Ponto’s black Hampshires had been sacrificed a short time previous to my visit. It was an excellent and comfortable repast; only there WAS rather a sameness in it, certainly. I made a similar remark the next day’.

During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions regarding the nobility, my relatives. ‘When Lady Angelina Skeggs would come out; and if the countess her mamma’ (this was said with much archness and he-heing) ‘still wore that extraordinary purple hair-dye?’ ‘Whether my Lord Guttlebury kept, besides his French chef, and an English cordonbleu for the roasts, an Italian for the confectionery?’

‘Who attended at Lady Clapperclaw’s conversazioni?’ and ‘whether Sir John Champignon’s “Thursday Mornings” were pleasant?’ ‘Was it true that Lady Carabas, wanting to pawn her diamonds, found that they were paste, and that the Marquis had disposed of them beforehand?’ ‘How was it that Snuffin, the great tobacco-merchant, broke off the marriage which was on the tapis between him and their second daughter; and was it true that a mulatto lady came over from the Havanna and forbade the match?’

‘Upon my word, Madam,’ I had begun, and was going on to say that I didn’t know one word about all these matters which seemed so to interest Mrs. Major Ponto, when the Major, giving me a tread or stamp with his large foot under the table, said —‘Come, come, Snob my boy, we are all tiled, you know. We KNOW you’re one of the fashionable people about town: we saw your name at Lady Clapperclaw’s SOIREES, and the Champignon breakfasts; and as for the Rubadubs, of course, as relations ——’

‘Oh, of course, I dine there twice a-week,’ I said; and then I remembered that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the Middle Temple, IS a great frequenter of genteel societies, and to have seen his name in the MORNING POST at the tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the hint, I am ashamed to say I indulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of information about the first families in England, such as would astonish those great personages if they knew it. I described to her most accurately the three reigning beauties of last season at Almack’s: told her in confidence that his Grace the D—— of W—— was going to be married the day after his Statue was put up; that his Grace the D—— of D—— was also about to lead the fourth daughter of the Archduke Stephen to the hymeneal altar:— and talked to her, in a word, just in the style of Mrs. Gore’s last fashionable novel.

Mrs. Major was quite fascinated by this brilliant conversation. She began to trot out scraps of French, just for all the world as they do in the novels; and kissed her hand to me quite graciously, telling me to come soon to caffy, UNG PU DE MUSICK O SALONG— with which she tripped off like an elderly fairy.

‘Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such a thing as Hollands and water?’ says Ponto, looking ruefully at me. This was a very different style of thing to what I had been led to expect from him at our smoking-room at the Club: where he swaggers about his horses and his cellar: and slapping me on the shoulder used to say, ‘Come down to Mangelwurzelshire, Snob my boy, and I’ll give you as good a day’s shooting and as good a glass of claret as any in the county.’—‘Well,’ I said, ‘I like Hollands much better than port, and gin even better than Hollands.’ This was lucky. It WAS gin; and Stripes brought in hot water on a splendid plated tray.

The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs. Ponto’s ung PU DE MUSICK had commenced, and the smell of the stable again entering the dining-room, in the person of Stripes, summoned us to CAFFY and the little concert. She beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on which she made room for me, and where we could command a fine view of the backs of the young ladies who were performing the musical entertainment. Very broad backs they were too, strictly according to the pres............