handkerchiefs. He indulges, however, in very considerable latitude with
the other married ladies of the family; and has many sly pleasantries to
whisper to them, that provoke an equivocal laugh and tap of the fan. But
when he gets among young company, such as Frank Bracebridge, the
Oxonian, and the general, he is apt to put on the mad wig, and to talk
in a very bachelor-like strain about the sex.

In this he has been encouraged by the example of the general, whom he
looks up to as a man who has seen the world. The general, in fact, tells
shocking stories after dinner, when the ladies have retired, which he
gives as some of the choice things that are served up at the
Mulligatawney Club, a knot of boon companions in London. He also repeats
the fat jokes of old Major Pendergast, the wit of the club, and which,
though the general can hardly repeat them for laughing, always make Mr.
Bracebridge look grave, he having a great antipathy to an indecent
jest. In a word, the general is a complete instance of the declension in
gay life, by which a young man of pleasure is apt to cool down into an
obscene old gentleman.

[Illustration: "I saw him and Master Simon conversing with a buxom
milkmaid in a meadow."--PAGE 87.]

I saw him and Master Simon, an evening or two since, conversing with a
buxom milkmaid in a meadow; and from their elbowing each other now and
then, and the general's shaking his shoulders, blowing up his cheeks,
and breaking out into a short fit of irrepressible laughter, I had no
doubt they were playing the mischief with the girl.

As I looked at them through a hedge, I could not but think they would
have made a tolerable group for a modern picture of Susannah and the two