Pre-Bailway Life in London. 165 



fashion in London, who had the entree behind the scenes 

 and paid their respects to the grand opera stars. The 

 London men of fashion mostly consisted of officers in the 

 Household Brigade and members of military clubs, elder 

 sons who were idle men, gay young members of either 

 House of Parliament, and cadets of noble families who 

 were in the Treasury or Foreign Office, or those who 

 fancied they were reading for the bar. They were always 

 well bred and weU dressed, and if there was a taste of 

 puppyism about some of them, it was only external and not 

 very unnatural in young men who had been spoilt from 

 childhood. There was no doubt about their pluck, as has 

 been proved from time immemorial, by the graves of many 

 a hard-fought battle-field, and they never were rude or 

 obtrusive in any way. They were scrupulously particular 

 about good breeding, and would never have dreamt of 

 appearing at the West End with a cigar in their mouths 

 after twelve o'clock in the day, or of nodding to Phryne or 

 Lais in the parks, unless they wished to receive the penalty 

 of ostracism by the dowagers who ruled society. They 

 were just as much at home by the ring side, or in a boxer's 

 sparring room, when they put on the gloves with Tom, or 

 Jack, or Harry, or any other rising novice, for what was 

 usually called a " bellyful," as they were in a drawing-room 

 or the opera. The crowd styled them the Corinthians, or 

 the Swells, and nothing pleased them better than seeing a 

 young lord riding his own horse in a steeple-chase in the 

 Harrow country, and coming in a winner one mass of mud 

 from head to foot. 



The race-course was a great place for the swells. Their 

 well-appointed drag, not so common as now, attracted 

 general attention, and it was great fun to hear '' Jerry," 

 the king of the card-sellers and turf characters, attii^ed in a 

 cocked-hat and wearing an eye-glass, go up to a four-iu- 



