~214~~ men and manners display no common mind. Yet here he was seen
associated with the most depraved of the human species--the gambler by
profession, the common cheat! What wonder that such connexions should
have compelled him for a time to become an exile to his country, and on
his return involved him in a transaction that has ended in irretrievable
ruin and disgrace? "By the honour of my ancestry," said Lionise,
"yonder is that delectable creature, old Crony, the dinner many that
is the most surprising animal we have yet found among the modern
discoveries--polite to and point--always well dressed--keeps the best
society--or, I should say, the best society keeps him: to an amazing fund
of the newest on dits and anecdotes of ton, always ready cut and dried,
he joins a smattering of the classics, and chops logic with the learned
that he may carve their more substantial fare gratis; has a memory
tenacious as a chief judge on matter of invitation, and a stomach
capacious as a city alderman in doing honour to the feast; pretends to
be a connoisseur in wines, although he never possessed above one bottle
at a time in his cellaret, I should think, in the whole course of his
life; talks about works of art and virtu as if Sir Joshua Reynolds had
been his nurse--Claude his intimate acquaintance--or Praxiteles his
great great grandfather.
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