第46章

His name is proclaimed, every now and then, by Mr.

Sheriff's Officer Hemp; and about Boulogne, and Paris, and Brussels, there are so many of his sort that I will lay a wager that I shall be accused of gross personality for showing him up.Many a less irreclaimable villain is transported; many a more honourable man is at present at the treadmill; and although we are the noblest, greatest, most religious, and most moral people in the world, Iwould still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that gentlemen own to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France.You never hear people in other parts of Europe brag of their swindling;or see a prison in a large Continental town which is not more or less peopled with English rogues.

A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above transparent and passive scamp, is frequent on the continent of Europe, and my young Snob friends who are travelling thither should be especially warned against him.Captain Legg is a gentleman, like Raff, though perhaps of a better degree.He has robbed his family too, but of a great deal more, and has boldly dishonoured bills for thousands, where Raff has been boggling over the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note.Legg is always at the best inn, with the finest waistcoats and moustaches, or tearing about in the flashest of britzkas, while poor Raff is tipsifying himself with spirits, and smoking cheap tobacco.It is amazing to think that Legg, so often shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing yet.He would sink into utter ruin, but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that distinguishes the English Snob.There is many a young fellow of the middle classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and yet from his desire to be in the fashion, and his admiration of tip-top swells, and from his ambition to air himself by the side of a Lord's son, will let Legg make an income out of him; content to pay, so long as he can enjoy that society.Many a worthy father of a family, when he hears that his son is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, is rather pleased that young Hopeful should be in such good company.

Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours through Europe, and are to be found at the right places at the right time.Last year I heard how my young acquaintance, Mr.Muff, from Oxford, going to see a little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by an Englishman who did not know a word of the d----language, and hearing Muff speak it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with whom there was a dispute about refreshments.It was quite a comfort, the stranger said, to see an honest English face; and did Muff know where there was a good place for supper? So those two went to supper, and who should come in, of all men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg introduced Macer, and so there came on a little intimacy, and three-card loo, &c.&c..Year after year scores of Muffs, in various places in the world, are victimised by Legg and Macer.The story is so stale, the trick of seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a wonder people can be taken in any more: but the temptations of vice and gentility together are too much for young English Snobs, and those simple young victims are caught fresh every day.Though it is only to be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, your true British Snob will present himself for the honour.

I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and no French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis.We can all of us laugh at THAT fellow's pretensions well enough--we who tremble before a great man of our own nation.But, as you say, my brave and honest John Bull of a Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from an English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and Italian Fuersten and Principi awaken the scorn of an honest-minded Briton.But our aristocracy!--that's a very different matter.They are the real leaders of the world--the real old original and-no-mistake nobility.

Off with your cap, Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and truckle.