Various

“ Whilst he is still a year or two on the fair side of thirty, it may happen that a turn of the political wheel will bring into high office a statesman who is quite willing to be served by those who are able to make themselves useful to him, without exacting from them solidity either of character or of attainments. With him the Servant of Society, with an instinct that does credit to his discernment, will have established friendly relations. ”

“ I exclaimed: "and, were it not that our food was excellent, who would stay at Newgate?" For I confess that, although there are pleasure-gardens, and every sort of amusement and comfort, Newgate, at times, is decidedly damp. Then I raised a glass of punch to my lips, and wished him the same luck that I myself enjoyed. "And that I had!" quoth he. "Would I were prisoner instead of Governor. But it would not be meet. I am not a man of sufficient quality!" ”

“ Noble sportsmen are proud to be seen in his company, aristocratic guinea-pigs are constantly in his pocket in the congenial society of the great man's purse, art willingly reproduces his features, journalism enthusiastically commemorates his adventures, and even Royalty does not thrust away a votary whose ministrations are as acceptable as they are readily performed. ”

“ But the genuine Servant of Society is of a different stamp. Ordinarily he is of a good family, and of a competence which both differs from and resembles his general character in being possessed at once of the attributes of modesty and assurance. From an early age he will have been noted for the qualities which in after-life render him humbly celebrated in subordinate positions. ”

“ Without much effort on his own part he is raised to pinnacles which he imagined impossible of access, and soon learns to look down with a contempt that might spring of ancient lineage and assured merit, upon the hungry crowd whose cry is that of the daughter of the horse-leech. ”

“ The coarse but honest Snob still perhaps exists, and here and there he thrusts and pushes in the old familiar way; but more often than not the upstart who has won his way to wealth and consideration finds himself to his own surprise courted and fawned upon by those whose boots his abilities would have fitted him to black, and his disposition prompted him to lick. ”

“ It is! It is a stag! A magnificent fellow—though he appears to have only one horn. But, how odd! I believe he has seen me, and yet doesn't seem scared! Yes, he is actually approaching in the most leisurely fashion in the world. But that isn't the correct thing. In deer-stalking, I'm sure you ought to stalk the deer, not the deer stalk you. ”

“ The Examiners triumph, and the career of the Servant of Society begins in earnest. The position of his parents secures for him an entrance into good houses. He is a young man of great tact and of small accomplishments. He can warble a song, aid a great lady to organise a social festivity, lead a cotillon, order a dinner, and help to eat it, act in amateur theatricals, and recommend French novels to inquiring matrons. ”

“ Should any foreign Government, fearful of pleuro-pneumonia or trichinosis, refuse to trust to the infallibility of the American inspectors, the President of the United States is authorised to retaliate by directing that such products of such foreign State as he may deem proper shall be excluded from importation to the United States. ”

“ It is as common a mistake to suppose that all tuft-hunters are necessarily of lowly birth and of inferior social position, as it is to believe them all to be offensive in manner and shallow in artifice. ”

“ He now has the satisfaction of seeing many of those who desire anything that a Cabinet Minister can give, cringing to one whom they despise, and who rejoices in the knowledge that he can afford to patronise them, and perhaps crush them by obtaining for them that which they want. ”

“ According to the Standard, by the new Meat Inspection Law, just come into force in the United States, American cattle and pigs for export to England, France, or Germany, are to be inspected before leaving America, with a view to removing the grounds of objection on the part of those Governments to the unrestricted reception of these important American exports. ”

“ I have seen on a Gas Company's circular the terrors of a statute invoked to secure prompt payment of a few shillings! After all, the Gas Companies (albeit monopolists) are merely traders, and the Public are the customers. If a butcher, a baker, or a candle-stick maker invariably attempted to secure immediate payment by reference on the invoice to the usefulness of the County Court, it is more than possible that that butcher, that baker, or that candle-stick maker, would speedily have to retire from business viâ the Bankruptcy column of The London Gazette. ”

“ At school he will have had the good fortune to be attached as fag to a big boy who occupied an important place as an athlete, and whose condescending smiles were naturally an object of greater ambition to the small fry than the approval of the school authorities. ”

“ The rough pursuits of the merely athletic repel him, yet he has the knack of assuming an interest where he feels it not, and is able to prattle quite pleasantly about sports in which he takes little or no active part. ”

“ In time his name becomes the common property of all Society journals—his biography is published in one, his discreet service is extolled in another, while a third goes so far as to hint that, if the truth were known, it would be found that the various departments of the State could not possibly carry on their affairs without his enlightened counsel. ”

“ He flutters about innumerable dovecots, without ever fluttering those who dwell in them, and, in course of time, he comes to be known and accepted everywhere as a useful man. As might be supposed, he is never obtrusively manly. ”

“ At the age of sixty he will still be a young man, with a gay style of banter peculiarly his own. Towards the end of his life he will often talk darkly of great events in which he has played a part, and of extraordinary services which only he could have performed ”

“ He gauges with great accuracy his own capacities, and carefully limits his ambition to those smaller desires which, since they exact no vaulting power, are never likely to bring about a fall on the other side. ”

“ Yet he manages to avoid giving offence by occasionally assuming a gentle humility of manner, to which he almost succeeds in imparting a natural air, and he studiously refrains from saying or doing anything which, since it may cause other men to provoke him, may possibly result in his being forced to pretend that he himself has been ruffled. ”

“ I'm afloat, I'm afloat, and the Rover is free!
DEFINITION OF MILITARY MANOEUVRES.—"Peace-work."
DARWINITES.—"The Evolutionary Squadron."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Speaking of Reynart the Fox, I was made, by a slip of the printer's hand—I am accustomed to seeing slips from his hand, which is quite another thing—to say that this mediæval romance "presents a truer picture of life than novels in which vice is punished and virtue patiently rewarded." After considering for some time what on earth I could have meant by "patiently rewarded," I remembered that I had written "patently rewarded." ”

“ I have pointed out to him that I don't think this will be any use, as in deer-stalking I fancy you follow the stag at some distance, but he seems resolute about the pickaxe, and so, I suppose, I must let him have his way. The Bulgarian Count was deeply interested in the matter, and says that evidently the proper weapon to use is a species of quick-firing, repeating Hotchkiss, and that he has one now on its way through Edinburgh, the invention of a compatriot, that will fire 2700 two-ounce bullets in a minute and a-half. ”

“ For him he performed with much assiduity the various duties of a fag, happy to shine amongst his companions as the recipient of the great boy's favours. To play the jackal without incurring universal dislike is (at school) no very easy task, but he accomplishes it with discretion and with a natural aptitude that many maturer jackals might envy. ”

“ The shooting over four or five hundred acres, and the meeting of not less than three packs of hounds in the immediate neighbourhood, with salmon and trout fishing within easy distance of the mansion, are also considered indispensable. Particulars as to the surrounding country gentry are requested. Write also stating whether any recognised race-meeting is held in the immediate vicinity. The distance of the property from town must not be more than half an hour's railway journey, and the inclusive rent must not exceed five and twenty shillings a week. ”

“ At the same time it must be admitted that he holds a gun fairly straight, and does not disgrace himself when the necessity of slaughtering a friend's pheasants interrupts for a few hours the rehearsals of private theatricals, in company with the friend's wife. ”

“ He can draw and paint, but he won't, and there's an end on't. He must follow up the Nutshells with a volume of Crackers, about Christmas time.
Just been looking through London Street Arabs, by Mrs. H.M. STANLEY, published by CASSELL & Co., which firm—whose telegraphic address is "Caspeg, London," and a good name too—writes to the Baron thus:—"In forwarding you an early copy"—small and early—"of Mrs. Stanley's book, we will ask you to be good enough"— ("I am 'good enough'" quoth the Baron) —"to confine your extracts from the Introduction to an extent not exceeding one-third of the whole." ”