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You are very humble and very diffident truly: the meaning of what you say being simply this, that you are a mighty handsome fellow. Well, be it so; make as much of your personal qualifications as you can: it were hard indeed if they did not stand you in some good account, since you and your fashionable brotherhood take no pains to acquire any other.

And they will stand us in good account, my good sir. Upon my honour we treat the sex in a much fairer manner than you do. She who marries one of us sees what she gets, but he who pretends to a woman on the score of his mental accomplishments, holds out to her a most deceitful lure. A man's temper and opinions may change, but he always wears the same pair of legs.

There is some reason in this, I confess: and there is one advantage you have in thus tricking out your four quarters for the market,—they are in no danger of going off for less than they are worth. Your man of ton, as you call it, most commonly ends his career by marrying just such a woman as he deserves.