won't go home till morning." He gets them to join him in pulling down
signs, taking gates from their hinges and throwing them into back yards
and horse-ponds. If the police arrest them, he knocks them down, is
taken to the lockup, and joyfully foots the bills.

"Ah! my boys," he cries, "what is the use of being rich, if you can't
enjoy yourself?"

He might more truly say, "if you can't make a fool of yourself;" but he
is "fast," hates slow things, and doesn't "see it." Young men loaded
down with other people's money are almost sure to lose all they inherit,
and they acquire all sorts of bad habits which, in the majority of
cases, ruin them in health, purse and character. In this country, one
generation follows another, and the poor of to-day are rich in the next
generation, or the third. Their experience leads them on, and they
become rich, and they leave vast riches to their young children. These
children, having been reared in luxury, are inexperienced and get poor;
and after long experience another generation comes on and gathers up
riches again in turn. And thus "history repeats itself," and happy is he
who by listening to the experience of others avoids the rocks and shoals
on which so many have been wrecked.

"In England, the business makes the man." If a man in that country is a
mechanic or working-man, he is not recognized as a gentleman. On the
occasion of my first appearance before Queen Victoria, the Duke of
Wellington asked me what sphere in life General Tom Thumb's parents were
in.

"His father is a carpenter," I replied.