cried the Beau, 'how d'ye do, Byng? a family vehicle, I see.'

It seems incredulous to modern gentlemen that such a man should have
been tolerated even at a club. Take, for instance, his vulgar treatment
of Lord Mayor Combe, whose name we still see with others over many a
public-house in London, and who was then a most prosperous brewer and
thriving gambler. At Brookes' one evening the Beau and the Brewer were
playing at the same table, 'Come, _Mash-tub_', cried the 'gentleman,'
'what do you set?' Mash-tub unresentingly set a pony, and the Beau won
twelve of him in succession. Pocketing his cash, he made him a bow, and
exclaimed, 'Thank you, Alderman, in future I shall drink no porter but
yours.' But Combe was worthy of his namesake, Shakspere's friend, and
answered very aptly, 'I wish, sir, that every _other_ blackguard in
London would tell me the same.'

Then again, after ruining a young fool of fortune at the tables, and
being reproached by the youth's father for leading his son astray, he
replied with charming affectation, 'Why, sir, I did all I could for him.
I once gave him my arm all the way from White's to Brookes'!'

When Brummell really wanted a dinner, while at Calais, he could not give
up his impertinence for the sake of it. Lord Westmoreland called on him,
and, perhaps out of compassion, asked him to dine at _three o'clock_
with him. 'Your Lordship is very kind,' said the Beau, 'but really I
could not _feed_ at such an hour.' Sooner or later he was glad to _feed_
with any one who was toady enough to ask him. He was once placed in a
delightfully awkward position from having accepted the invitation of a
charitable but vulgar-looking Britisher at Calais. He was walking with
Lord Sefton, when the individual passed and nodded familiarly. 'Who's
your friend, Brummell?'--'Not mine, he must be bowing to you.' But