The Fitz-Boodle Papers
sometimes on their chins?"

   Second Miss.—"Nonsense, Mary!"

   Third Miss.—"Well, I only asked, Jane. Frank thinks, you know, that he shall very soon have one, and puts bear's-grease on his chin every night."

   Second Miss.—"Mary, nonsense!"

   Third Miss.—"Well, only ask him. You know he came to our dressing-room last night and took the pomatum away; and he says that when boys go to Oxford they always—"

   First Miss.—"O heavens! have you heard the news about the Lancers? Charles—that is, Captain Travers, told it me!"

   Second Miss.—"Law! they won't go away before the ball, I hope!"

   First Miss.—"No, but on the 15th they are to shave their moustaches! He says that Lord Tufto is in a perfect fury about it!"

   Second Miss.—"And poor George Beardmore, too!" &c.

   Here Tom upsets the coffee over his trousers, and the conversations end. I can recollect a dozen such, and ask any man of sense whether such talk amuses him?

   Try again to speak to a young lady while you are dancing—what we call in this country—a quadrille. What nonsense do you invariably give and receive in return! No, I am a woman-scorner, and don't care to own it. I hate young ladies! Have I not been in love with several, and has any one of them ever treated me decently? I hate married women! Do they not hate me? and, simply because I smoke, try to draw their husbands away from my society? I hate dowagers! Have I not cause? Does not every dowager in London point to George Fitz-Boodle as to a dissolute wretch whom young and old should avoid?

   And yet do not imagine that I have not loved. I have, and madly, many, many times! I am but eight-and-thirty,* not past the age of passion, and may very likely end by running off with an heiress—or a cook-maid (for who knows what strange freaks Love may choose to play in his own particular person? and I hold a man to be a mean creature who calculates about checking any such sacred impulse as lawful love)—I say, though despising the sex in general for their conduct to me, I know of particular persons belonging to it who are worthy of all respect and esteem, and as such I beg leave to point out the particular young lady who is perusing these lines. Do not, dear madam, then imagine that if I 
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