Dauphin. You don't fancy it came of the young dog "all of himself,"
do you? Why, it was clever! He trots about a briefless little
barrister, a scribbler, devilish clever and impudent, who does his farces
for him. Tenby 's the fellow's name, and it's the only thing I haven't
heard him pun on. Puns are the smallpox of the language;--we're cursed
with an epidemic. By gad, the next time I meet him I 'll roar out for
vaccine matter.'

He described the dinner given by Edbury at a celebrated City tavern where
my father and this so-called Dauphin were brought together. 'Dinner to-
night,' he nodded, as he limped away on his blissful visit of ceremony to
sprightly Chassediane (a bouquet had gone in advance): he left me
stupefied. The sense of ridicule enveloped me in suffocating folds,
howling sentences of the squire's Boeotian burlesque by fits. I felt
that I could not but take the world's part against the man who allowed
himself to be made preposterous externally, when I knew him to be staking
his frail chances and my fortune with such rashness. It was unpardonable
for one in his position to incur ridicule. Nothing but a sense of duty
kept me from rushing out of London, and I might have indulged the impulse
advantageously. Delay threw me into the clutches of Lady Kane herself,
on whom I looked with as composed a visage as I could command, while she
leaned out of her carriage chattering at me, and sometimes over my head
to passing gentlemen.

She wanted me to take a seat beside her, she had so much to say. Was
there not some funny story abroad of a Pretender to the Throne of France?
she asked, wrinkling her crow'sfeet eyelids to peer at me, and wished to
have the particulars. I had none to offer. 'Ah! well,' said she; 'you
stay in London? Come and see me. I'm sure you 're sensible. You and I
can put our heads together. He's too often in Courtenay Square, and he's