MB. SPONGE'S SPOBTING TOUB. 209 



perhaps thought, our city coat and country gaiters would not find 

 much favour, he gave us a hasty parting squeeze of the arm, and 

 bolted into Long's just as a mountainous hackney-coach was 

 rumbling between us and them. 



But to the old man. Time rolled on, and at length Old 

 Puffington paid the debt of nature — the only debt, by the way, 

 that he was slow in discharging, and our friend found himself in 

 possession, not only of the starch manufactory, but of a very great 

 accumulation of consols — so great that, though starch is as in- 

 offensive a thing as a man can well deal in, a thing that never 

 obtrudes itself, or, indeed, appears iu a shop, unless it is asked for ; 

 notwithstanding all this, and though it was bringing him in lots 

 of money, our friend determined to " cut the shop " and be done 

 with trade altogether. 



Accordingly, he sold the premises and good-will, with all the 

 stock of potatoes and wheat, to the foreman, old Soapsuds, at 

 something below what they were really worth, rather than make 

 any row in the way of advertising ; and the name of " Soapsuds, 

 Brothers, and Co." reigns on the blue-and-whity-brown parcel-ends, 

 where formerly that of Puffington stood supreme. 



It is a melancholy fact, which those best acquainted with London 

 society can vouch for, that her " swells " are a very ephemeral race. 

 Take the last five-and-twenty years, — say from the days of the 



Golden Ball and Pea-green Hayne down to those of Molly C 1 



and Mr. D — 1 — f — Id, — and see what a succession of joyous — no, 

 not joyous, but rattling, careless, dashing, sixty-per-centing youths 

 we have had. 



And where are they all now ? Some dead, some at Boulogne- 

 sur-Mer, some in Denman Lodge, some perhaps undergoing the 

 polite attentions of Mr. Commissioner Phillips, or figuring in 

 Mr. Hemp's periodical publication of gentlemen " who are 

 wanted." 



In speaking of " swells," of course we are not alluding to men 

 with reference to their clothes alone, but to men whose dashing, and 

 perhaps eccentric, exteriors are but indicative of their general 

 system of extravagance. The man who rests his claims to distinc- 

 tion solely on his clothes will very soon find himself in want of 

 society. Many things contribute to thin the ranks of our swells. 

 Many, as we said before, outrun the constable. Some get fat, 

 some get married, some get tired, and a few get wiser. There is, 

 however, always a fine pushing crop coming on. A man like 

 Puffington, who starts a dandy (in contradistinction to a swell), 

 and adheres steadily to clothes — talking eternally of the cuts of 

 coats or the ties of cravats — up to the sober age of forty, must be 

 always falling back on the rising generation for society. 



Puffington was not what the old ladies call a profligate young 



