Tarleton was the first to suffer by my new pursuit. "What has altered
you?" said he; "you drink not, neither do you play. The women say you
are grown duller than a Norfolk parson, and neither the Puppet Show nor
the Water Theatre, the Spring Gardens nor the Ring, Wills's nor the Kit
Cat, the Mulberry Garden nor the New Exchange, witness any longer your
homage and devotion. What has come over you?--speak!"

"Apathy!"

"Ah! I understand,--you are tired of these things; pish, man!--go down
into the country, the green fields will revive thee, and send thee back
to London a new man! One would indeed find the town intolerably dull,
if the country were not, happily, a thousand times duller: go to the
country, Count, or I shall drop your friendship."

"Drop it!" said I, yawning, and Tarleton took pet, and did as I desired
him. Now I had got rid of my friend as easily as I had found him,--a
matter that would not have been so readily accomplished had not Mr.
Tarleton owed me certain moneys, concerning which, from the moment he
had "dropped my friendship," good breeding effectually prevented his
saying a single syllable to me ever after. There is no knowing the
blessings of money until one has learned to manage it properly!

So much, then, for the friend; now for the mistress. Lady Hasselton
had, as Tarleton hinted before, resolved to play me a trick of spite;
the reasons of our rupture really were, as I had stated to Tarleton, the
mighty effects of little things. She lived in a sea of trifles, and she
was desperately angry if her lover was not always sailing a
pleasure-boat in the same ocean. Now this was expecting too much from
me, and, after twisting our silken strings of attachment into all manner