As the order of precedence at the house of a gentility-monger is not strictly understood, the host desires Honourable Sniftky to take down miss; and calling out the names of the other guests, like muster-master of the guards, pairs them, and sends them down to the dining-room, where you find the nephew, or family doctor, (or whatever he is,) who has inspected the arrangement of the table, already in waiting.

You take your place, not without that excess of ceremony that distinguishes the table of a gentility-monger; the Honourable Sniftky, ex-officio, takes his place between mamma and miss, glancing vacancy round the table, lest any body should think himself especially honoured by a fixed stare; covers are removed by the mob of occasional waiters in attendance, and white soup and brown soup, thick and heavy as judges of assize, go circuit.

Then comes hobnobbing, with an interlocutory dissertation upon a plateau, candelabrum, or some other superfluous machine, in the centre of the table.  One of the professed diners-out, discovers for the twentieth time an inscription in dead silver on the pedestal, and enquires with well-affected ignorance whether that is a present; the gentility-monger asks the diner-out to wine, as he deserves, then enters into a long apologetical self-laudation of his exertions in behalf of the CANNIBAL ISLANDS, ABORIGINES, PROTECTION, AND BRITISH SUBJECT TRANSPORTATION SOCIETY, (some emigration crimping scheme, in short,) in which his humble efforts to diffuse civilization and promote Christianity, however unworthy, ("No, no!” from the diner-out,) gained the esteem of his fellow-labourers, and the approbation of his own con——­“Shall I send you some fish, sir?” says the man at the foot of the table, addressing himself to the Honourable Sniftky, and cutting short the oration.

A monstrous salmon and a huge turbot are now dispensed to the hungry multitude; the gentility-monger has no idea that the biggest turbot is not the best; he knows it is the dearest, and that is enough for him; he would have his dishes like his cashbook, to show at a glance how much he has at his banker’s.  When the flesh of the guests has been sufficiently fishified, there is an interregnum, filled up with another circuit of wine, until the arrival of the pieces de resistance, the imitations of made dishes, and the usual etceteras.  The conversation, meanwhile, is carried on in a staccato style; a touch here, a hit there, a miss almost every where; the Honourable Sniftky turning the head of mamma with affected compliments, and hobnobbing to himself without intermission.  After a sufficiently tedious interval, the long succession of wasteful extravagance is cleared away with the upper tablecloth; the dowagers, at a look from our hostess, rise with dignity and decorously retire, miss modestly bringing up the rear—­the man at the foot of the table with the handle of the door in one hand, and a napkin in the other, bowing them out.