as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in
society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. Snobbishness is like Death
in a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, 'beating
with equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of
Emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think
they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of
Snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You
must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are
yourself a Snob. I myself have been taken for one.

When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and living at the
'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit opposite me at breakfast, for
a short time, a Snob so insufferable that I felt I should never get
any benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was
Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore
japanned boots and moustaches: he lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's'
out of his words: he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his
lacquered whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room
with an odour of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with
that Snob, and that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began
harmless conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did
not know what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion
that anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first:
then I handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these
advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and--and use my fork
in the light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he
could bear it no longer, and fairly quitted the place.

Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who asked him if
he thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and drove him from the Hotel