mere man of pleasure, the other will probably be a Minister of State. They are as like as two peas, but were I to dress the dandy and the minister the same, it would be bad taste—it would be ridiculous. No man gives me the trouble which Lord Eglantine does; he has not made up his mind whether he will be a great poet or a Prime Minister. ‘You must choose, my lord,’ I tell him. ‘I cannot send you out looking like Lord Byron if you mean to be a Canning or a Pitt.’

“What all men should avoid is the ‘shabby genteel.’ No man ever gets over it. I will save you from that. You had better be in rags.”