that it is found to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never came out before—positively say things! William Buffy carries one of these smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the House, where the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuffbox to keep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the Speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under the corner of his wig) cries, “Order at the bar!” three times without making an impression.
And not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being vaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of Mr. Sladdery’s high connection, people who know nothing and ever did know nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend that she is their topic too, and to retail her at secondhand with the last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl, and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at secondhand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to fainter stars. If there be any