"So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs.Maria, hay?" said the old gentleman, rattling up the carriage windows as he and his daughter drove away one night from Mrs. Frederick Bullock's, after dinner."So she invites her father and sister to a second day's dinner (if those sides, or ontrys, as she calls 'em,weren't served yesterday, I'm d—d), and to meet City folks and littery men, and keeps the Earls and the Ladies, and the Honourables to herself. Honourables?Damn Honourables. I am a plain British merchant I am, and could buy the beggarly hounds over and over.Lords, indeed!—why, at one of her swarreys I saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler—a fellar I despise.And they won't come to Russell Square, won't they?Why, I'll lay my life I've got a better glass of wine, and pay a better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of silver, and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than ever they see on theirs—the cringing,sneaking, stuck-up fools. Drive on quick, James: I want to get back to Russell Square—ha, ha!" and he sank back into the corner with a furious laugh. With such reflections on his own superior merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman not unfrequently to console himself.