Tickler.—­’Tis, in fact, their duty to be a good deal in London.  But I’ll tell you what I do object to, and what I rather think are evils of modern date, or at any rate, of very rapid recent growth.  First, I object to their living those months of the year in which it is contra bonos mores to be in London, not in their paternal mansions, but at those little bastardly abortions, which they call watering-places—­their Leamingtons, their Cheltenhams, their Brighthelmstones.

Theodore.—­Brighton, my dear rustic Brighton!

Odoherty.—­Synopice.

Shepherd.—­What’s your wull, Sir Morgan?  It does no staun’ wi’ me.

Theodore.—­A horrid spot, certainly—­but possessing large conveniences, sir, for particular purposes.  For example, sir, the balcony on the drawing-room floor commonly runs on the same level all round the square—­which in the Brighthelmstonic dialect, sir, means a three-sided figure.  The advantage is obvious,

Shepherd.—­Och, sirs! och, sirs! what wull this world come to!

Theodore.—­The truth is, sir, that people comme il faut cannot well submit to the total change of society and manners implied in a removal from Whitehall or Mayfair to some absurd old antediluvian chateau, sir, boxed up among beeches and rooks.  Sir, only think of the small Squires with the red faces, sir, and the grand white waistcoats down to their hips—­and the dames, sir, with their wigs, and their simpers, and their visible pockets—­and the damsels, blushing things in white muslin, with sky-blue sashes and ribbons, and mufflers and things—­and the sons, sir, the promising young gentlemen, sir—­and the doctor, and the lawyer—­and the parson.  So you disapprove of Brighton, Mr. Tickler?

Tickler.—­Brighthelmstone, when I knew it, was a pleasant fishing village—­what like it is now, I know not; but what I detest in the great folks of your time, is, that insane selfishness which makes them prefer any place, however abominable, where they can herd together in their little exquisite coteries, to the noblest mansions surrounded with the noblest domains, where they cannot exist without being more or less exposed to the company of people not exactly belonging to their own particular sect.  How can society hang together long in a country where the Corinthian capital takes so much pains to unrift itself from the pillar?  Now-a-day, sir, your great lord, commonly speaking, spends but a month or six weeks in his ancestral abode; and even when he is there, he surrounds himself studiously with a cursed town-crew, a pack of St. James’s Street fops, and Mayfair chatterers and intriguers, who give themselves airs enough to turn the stomachs of the plain squirearchy and their womankind, and render a visit to the castle a perfect nuisance.

Theodore (aside to Mullion.)—­A prejudiced old prig!