M. Lupot dare not refuse.  He lays down his fifteen francs and loses them; next game the deficiency is twenty.  In short, in less than half an hour, the ex-stationer loses ninety francs.  His eyes start out of his head—­he scarcely knows where he is; and to complete his misery, the opposite party, in lifting up the money they have won, upset one of the lamps he had borrowed from his neighbours, and smashed it into fifty pieces.

At last the hour of separation comes.  The good citizen has been anxious for it for a long time.  All his gay company depart, without even wishing good-night to the host who has exerted himself so much for their entertainment.  The family of the Lupots are left alone; Madame, overcome with fatigue, and vexed because her cap had been found fault with; Celanire, with tears in her eyes, because her music and Belisarius had been laughed at; and Ascanius sick and ill, because he has nearly burst himself with cakes and muffins; M. Lupot was, perhaps, the unhappiest of all, thinking of his ninety francs and the broken lamp.  Old Annette gathered up the crumbs of the sandwiches, and muttered—­“Do they think people make English dishes to have them thrown into the corners of the room?”

“It’s done,” said M. Lupot; “I shall give no more soirees.  I begin to think I was foolish in wishing to leave my own sphere.  When people of the same class lark and joke each other, it’s all very well; but when you meddle with your superiors, and they are uncivil, it hurts your feelings.  Their mockery is an insult, and you don’t get over it soon.  My dear Celanire, I shall decidedly try to marry you to a stationer.”

* * * * *

THE WORLD OF LONDON.  SECOND SERIES.  PART III.

THE ARISTOCRACIES OF LONDON LIFE.

OF GENTILITY-MONGERING.

The HEAVY SWELL was recorded in our last for the admiration and instruction of remote ages.  When the nineteenth century shall be long out of date, and centuries in general out of their teens, posterity will revert to our delineation of the heavy swell with pleasure undiminished, through the long succession of ages yet to come; the macaroni, the fop, the dandy, will be forgotten, or remembered only in our graphic portraiture of the heavy swell.  But the heavy swell is, after all, a harmless nobody.  His curse, his besetting sin, his monomania, is vanity tinctured with pride:  his weak point can hardly be called a crime, since it affects and injures nobody but himself, if, indeed, it can be said to injure him who glories in his vocation—­who is the echo of a sound, the shadow of a shade.

The GENTILITY-MONGERS, on the contrary, are positively noxious to society, as well particular as general.  There is a twofold or threefold iniquity in their goings-on; they sin against society, their families, and themselves; the whole business of their lives is a perversion of the text of Scripture, which commandeth us, “in whatever station we are, therewith to be content.”