202 MR. sponge's sporting tour. 



man. On the contrary, he was naturally a nice, steady young man ; 

 and only indulged in the vagaries we have described because they 

 were indulged in by the high-born and gay. 



Tom and Jerry had a great deal to answer for in the way of lead- 

 ing soft-headed young men astray ; and old Puffington having had the 

 misfortune to christen our friend " Thomas," of course his compan- 

 ions dubbed him % ' Corinthian Tom ; " by which name he has been 

 known ever since. 



A man of such undoubted wealth could not be otherwise than a 

 great favourite with the fair, and innumerable were the invitations 

 that poured into his chambers in the Albany — dinner parties, evening 

 parties, balls, concerts, bones for the opera ; and as each succeeding 

 season drew to a close, invitations to those last efforts of the despe- 

 rate, boating and white-bait parties. 



Corinthian Tom went to them all — at least, to as many as he 

 could manage — always dressing in the most exemplary way, as though 

 he had been asked to show his fine clothes instead of to make love 

 to the ladies. Manifold were the hopes and expectations that he 

 raised. Puff could not understand that, though it is all very well to 

 be " an amaazin instance of a pop'lar man " with the men, that the 

 same sort of thing does not do with the ladies. 



We have heard that there were six mammas, bowling about in 

 their barouches, at the close of his second season, inuendoing, nod- 

 ding, and hinting to their friends, " that, &c," when there wasn't one 

 of their daughters who had penetrated the rhinoceros-like hide of 

 his own conceit. The consequence was, that all these ladies, all their 

 daughters, all the relations and connections of this life, thought it 

 incumbent upon them to "blow" our friend Puff — proclaim how 

 infamously he had behaved — all because he had danced three supper 

 dances with one girl ; brought another a fine bouquet from Co vent 

 Garden ; walked a third away from her party at a pic-nic at Erith ; 

 begged the mamma of a fourth to take her to" a Woolwich ball ; sent 

 a fifth a ticket for a Toxopholite meeting ; and dangled about the 

 carriage of the sixth at a review at the Scrubbs. Poor Puff never 

 thought of being more than an amaazin instance of a pop'lar man ! 



Not that the ladies' denunciations did the Corinthian any harm 

 at first — old ladies know each other better than that ; and each new 

 mamma had no doubt but Mrs. Depecarde or Mrs. Mainchance, as 

 the case might be, had been deceiving herself — " was always doin<* 

 so, indeed ; her ugly girls were not likely to attract any one — certainly 

 not such an elegant man as Corinthian Tom."' 



But as season after season passed away, and the Corinthian still 

 played the old game — still went the old rounds — the dinner and ball 

 invitations gradually dwindled away, till he became a mere stop-gap 

 at the one, and a landing-place appendage at the other. 



