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 as sure as you're alive, he asked what the play was! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Sir," said Mr Lovel, colouring, "if you were as much used to a town life as I am—which, I presume, is not precisely the case,—I fancy you would not find so much diversion from a circumstance so common."

"Common! what, is it common?" repeated the Captain; "why then, 'fore George, such chaps are more fit to be sent to school, and well disciplined with a cat o' nine tails, than to poke their heads into a play-house. Why, a play is the only thing left, now-a-days, that has a grain of sense in it; for as to all the rest of your public places, d'ye see, if they were all put together, I would n't give that for 'em!" snapping his fingers. "And now we're talking of them sort of things, there's your operas,—I should like to know, now, what any of you can find to say for them."

Lord Orville, who was most able to have answered, seemed by no means to think the Captain worthy an argument, upon a subject concerning which he had neither knowledge nor feeling: but, turning to us, he said, "The ladies are silent, and we seem to have engrossed the conversation to ourselves, in which we are much more our own enemies than theirs. But," addressing himself to Miss Mirvan and me, "I am