620 The Pimento Family ; or, [Jung, 
Kensington Gardens, and plunging into the surrounding “ Ha-ha !” had 
broken its knees, the cabriolet, Mr. Alfred’s head, and Mademoiselle 
Pirouette’s ankle. Here Lady P. recovered ; and after listening, with 
more patience than usual, to the lecture which her worthy husband deli- 
vered on the fashionable follies which he could foresee were destined to 
ruin him and his children, Lady P. commenced a reply equally eloquent, 
in vindication of her ‘“ dear Alfred.” His errors were the errors of a 
young man of fashion—indications of the esprit de corps—signs of a 
noble ambition to be one of the haut ton. ‘ And pray, Sir Peter,” 
inquired the lady, to clinch the matter, “ were you never guilty of any 
fashionable follies, when you were a young man ?”——“ None, Madam,” 
replied the husband, “ save going, once in the season, to Vauxhall, and 
twice or thrice to the theatres: these were follies sufficient to season a 
year. But now— 
Lady P. cut short the comparison by a second query :—“ And were 
you never guilty of a worse folly ?”—*« Yes, Madam,” replied the hus- 
band.—*« And pray what might that be?” further inquired the lady.— 
* T married you, Madam!” answered Sir Peter. And here Lady P., 
who had become a patroness of nerves, fainted again, and was carried by 
her women to her bed-chamber. Sir Peter then’ took the road to his 
son’s dressing-room. 
On entering, he found the valet bathing the head of his heir-apparent 
with Eau-de-Cologne ; and, truly, when the father looked in his face, he 
might well seem, as he was, puzzled, and somewhat dubious whether the 
good Samaritans who had brought him home had not brought some other 
unhappy father’s “dear Alfred,” for he could not recognize a single 
feature in his face. a, 
“Good Heaven!” groaned the afflicted father, “ that young men 
should thus wantonly risk limb and life in the pursuit of fashion!” He 
then gave a multiplicity of tender directions that “ he should be well 
looked to ;’ and wiping the moisture of anxiety from his forehead, stept 
softly out of the room, to visit his least patient patient, Lady P. He 
knocked gently at the door, and then entered; but what was his sur- 
prise to find “ the” Piroutte in his lady’s bed, and Lady P. on an otto- 
man, not quite recovered from the shock of her nerves, yet sufficiently so 
to command Sir Peter to leave the chamber “ for a brute as he was ;” 
which he, as a husband should, did, and, in a minute more, the house. 
He was met at the door by the stable-keeper of whom the bay had 
been hired, who very doggedly desired to know what was to be done 
with the mare, for she was ruined beyond repair? “ Shoot her at once, 
out of her misery,” said Sir Peter ; “ and, if you have a second bullet 
disengaged, do me the same favour, and put down another hundred to 
your bill !’—*‘* Perhaps, Sir Peter, you will oblige me with your cheque 
for one hundred now for the bay?” Sir Peter hesitated a moment : 
“ Tl see the damage done first, if you please, Mr. Mr. . Good 
morning, Sir!”—and he bowed the trickster from the door, and made 
his way.to the City. 
“Tam an unhappy father!” sighed the worthy merchant, as he _ 
entered his counting-house. ‘“ How is the market, Transit? how go 
sugars ?”—“ Up, Sir Peter, up—the demand is immense!” answered 
Mr. Transit.—< Come, this is well!” The merchant made a good morn- 
ing’s work, and returned in a more pleasant mood than usual to Portland- 
place. The lion-headed monster of his door was by that time comfort- 
2” 
