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 CHAPTER XX.

I SPEAK WITH THE CELEBRATED MR. SNARK.

On arriving at our town residence in Bloomsbury it was easy to ascertain that the family of Long Acre had fallen on an evil time. The troops of friends that formerly were so willing to receive and to be received now kept aloof, and avoided me in every way possible, as though I were a very leper. At first I felt disposed to accept this calmly, and in an amused but not uncharitable spirit. I persuaded myself that I could surely dispense with the favour of these shallow persons. But one week of it corrected this impression. For I soon discovered that flattery, admiration, and wholesale triumphs in the social sphere were indispensable to a life in town. Nature, in endowing me with a smile that, as young Anthony once remarked, was "sufficient to sweeten sour cream," and a beauty of person that provoked more odes than a successful campaign, also cursed me with a craving for its appreciation. Therefore in a day or two, when the novelty was outworn, disfavour and neglect became terribly irksome to support. And however proud a face I might put upon the matter when I went abroad, my pain was not thereby made the softer.