554 The United Service Smoke-shop : a Winter Sketch. [MAY, 



line, that is an understood point amongst our rulers ; besides,, nothing 

 can now be given away unless on the dictum of the Great Man every 

 place, from the secretary of state to his office-sweeper, comes under his gift. 

 Jack wanted money he had all the " elegant desires" of the gentleman 

 with a sad lack of the means of indulging them. He commenced his 

 career in the households, in the palmy days of Waterloo spent half his 

 fortune in them ! took the difference, and exchanged into the dragoons, 

 where he dashed away the other moiety : again he took the difference, 

 changed his service, and became a FoOT-man ! With his mother an 

 honourable, one uncle a minister, and another a right reverend, Jack still 

 looked forward with hope ; but there was a right restive in the way 

 who would neither lead nor drive, and who knew too much of Jack's 

 military movements to lend an ear to his advancement. 



Lt. Col. Towlter. Hookey! ( holding up his crooked Jtnger.) 



Capt. Cleverly. Just so ! I fear poor Jack's sun is set, unless he 

 improves his circumstances in the Hymeneal service. He talked at one 

 time of going out to his uncle in South America ; but he would pine his 

 life away before he reached the Pacific. 



Capt. Claymore. Is he the gentleman who wrote a spirited pamphlet 

 on duelling with a plan for a court of honour ? 



Capt. Cleverly. The same, major ; but it never found its way beyond 

 the tables of the clubs where it was distributed gratis, and the counters of 

 snuffmen and chandlers. All the shy-cocks attempted to laugh it down, 

 and the brave ones saw its impracticability in such a state of society as 

 the present. One gallant nobleman, however, gave it his support, and 

 in his own person (unnecessarily, I must say) gave an example of his 

 amenability to a law at once romantic and (with reference to that par- 

 ticular case) erroneous. 



Major Claymore. By the by, the marquis is in the field of letters again. 

 What do they say of his book on the wars of Germany and France ? 



Capt. Cleverly. His publisher says much, but as yet I have seen no 

 review of the work. 



Lt. Col. Towlter. I hope his lordship will not be called on to make so 

 many corrections, as those forced from him by the errors and mis-state- 

 ments in his last work. 



Capt. Cleverly. Nay, colonel, don't say forced ; for you ought to 

 know that no one is ever more ready to acknowledge and correct an 

 error than the nobleman we allude to. 



Lt. Col. Towlter. Granted, friend Cleverty, granted but the mischief 

 of errors in a work published under such imposing authority is, that 

 they reach the remotest quarters of the globe in a first edition, while the 

 corrections, " like a lame and hobbling beldame," limp after the swift- 

 winged scandal without a chance of overtaking her. 



Capt. Cleverty. Major, have you seen the Annals of the Peninsular 

 Campaign, by the author of Cyril Thornton ? 



Major Claymore. Who has not, by this time? I am deep in the 

 second reading, and the more I read, the more I am delighted. Mester 

 Ceeril showed his powers in his novel, but he has thrown away the dis- 

 taff and taken up the weapons of the Herculus. 



Capt. Cleverly. He does not pretend to so much. 



Major Claymore. All the better for his fame ! his unassuming preten- 

 sions render his work the more admirable. I look upon it invaluable, 

 as a book of reference ; his details are clear and comprehensive j his 



