Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to
pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not
eat peas with a knife?'--to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by
continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these
lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other
authors may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least,
am a moral man.

By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well
say what the moral of this history is. The moral is this--Society having
ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and
conform to its harmless orders.

If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I
should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)--if I should go
to one of the tea-parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in
the usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush
hat, a sham frill, and a white choker--I should be insulting society,
and EATING PEASE WITH MY KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle
out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards
society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and
police as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by
the decrees set forth for their common comfort.

I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation consumedly; but
I can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in
question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence.

Being at Constantinople a few years since--(on a delicate mission),--the
Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became