Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/85

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
55

truths there are broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and there through the world. What a magnificent museum a man might make of the precious minerals, if he would but go out with his basket under his arm, and his eyes about him! We, ourself, picked up, this very day, a certain small piece of truth, with which we propose to explain to thee, fair reader, a sinister turn in the fortunes of Paul.

"Wherever," says a living sage, "you see dignity, you may be sure there is expense requisite to support it."[1] So was it with Paul. A young gentleman who was heir-presumptive to the Mug, and who enjoyed a handsome person with a cultivated mind, was necessarily of a certain station in society, and an object of respect in the eyes of the manœuvring mamas in the vicinity of Thames Court. Many were the parties of pleasure to Deptford and Greenwich which Paul found himself compelled to attend; and we need not refer our readers to novels upon fashionable life, to inform them, that, in good soci-

  1. Popular Fallacies.