mh. sponge's sporting tour. 201 



and " Sir Jameses," and " Lord Johns," and " Lord Toms," till see- 

 ing a batch of irreproachable dandies flattening their noses against 

 the windows of the Sailors' Old Club, in whose eyes, he perhaps 

 thought, our city coat and country gaiters would not find much favour, 

 he gave us a hasty parting squeese 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 inoffensive a thing as a man can 

 well deal in, a thing that never obtrudes itself, or, indeed, appears in 

 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 some- 

 thing 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-grden 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 Dennian Lodge, some perhaps undergoing the polite at- 

 tentions 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 distinction 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 push- 

 ing 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 genera- 

 tion for society. 



Puffington was not what the old ladies called a profligate young 



u 



