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Sketches of Young Gentlemen by Charles Dickens
page 11 of 61 (18%)
weak-spirited and moping for him. Sometimes, however, on a birth-
day or at Christmas-time, he cannot very well help accompanying
them to a party at some old friend's, with which view he comes home
when they have been dressed an hour or two, smelling very strongly
of tobacco and spirits, and after exchanging his rough coat for
some more suitable attire (in which however he loses nothing of the
out-and-outer), gets into the coach and grumbles all the way at his
own good nature: his bitter reflections aggravated by the
recollection, that Tom Smith has taken the chair at a little
impromptu dinner at a fighting man's, and that a set-to was to take
place on a dining-table, between the fighting man and his brother-
in-law, which is probably 'coming off' at that very instant.

As the out-and-out young gentleman is by no means at his ease in
ladies' society, he shrinks into a corner of the drawing-room when
they reach the friend's, and unless one of his sisters is kind
enough to talk to him, remains there without being much troubled by
the attentions of other people, until he espies, lingering outside
the door, another gentleman, whom he at once knows, by his air and
manner (for there is a kind of free-masonry in the craft), to be a
brother out-and-outer, and towards whom he accordingly makes his
way. Conversation being soon opened by some casual remark, the
second out-and-outer confidentially informs the first, that he is
one of the rough sort and hates that kind of thing, only he
couldn't very well be off coming; to which the other replies, that
that's just his case-'and I'll tell you what,' continues the out-
and-outer in a whisper, 'I should like a glass of warm brandy and
water just now,'-'Or a pint of stout and a pipe,' suggests the
other out-and-outer.

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