by the modern Dilworth

Q. Are you a gentleman ?
A. I am.
Q. By what signs do you know that you are a gentleman ?
A. I have nothing to do, go to Almack’s, and eat olives after dinner.
Q. What is your fortune ?
A. A younger brother’s allowance of six hundred a year.
Q. What is your income ?
A. About five thousand a-year.
Q. I perceive you distinguish between fortune and income ?
A. I do. Every man of fashion does so.
Q. Explain the distinction ?
A. By fortune, I mean what may be called a man’s own money ; income, on the contrary, is made up of various articles and goods that come into his possession by virtue of credit, or otherwise.
Q. How do you rate your yearly income ?
A. By desiring my servant to cast up the year’s bills.
Q. Suppose you procure cash for an accommodation bill, how do you consider it ?
A. As an accession to my income ; I account myself so much the richer.
Q. How old are you ?
A. Twenty.
Q. How long have you been on the town ?
A. Three years.
Q. What is the ordinary period of a man of fashion’s life ?
A. A man of extreme fashion is accounted old at one-and-twenty, and if he has lived all his life, he commonly dies of extreme old age and infirmity at six-and-twenty, or thereabouts.
Q. What are the boundaries of town ?
A. Town is bounded on the North by Oxford-street, on the East by Bond-street and the Haymarket, on the South by Pall Mall and Piccadilly, and on the West by Park-lane.
Q. Is Portman-square then out of town ?
A. No, it certainly is not ; but I do not know how to bring it into town, nor how to leave it out ; but, many persons hold, with good authority, that the north of Oxford-street cannot be quite right.
Q. Where is Russell-square ?
A. I don’t know.
Q. Have you ever heard that place named ?
A. I certainly have heard it named, but only as a capital joke ; it is a place very much laughed at by witty men.
Q. Repeat one of these capital jokes ?
A. In the House of Commons, Mr. Croker having named Russell square, added a doubt whether any Member knew where that was.
Q. You read the debates, then ?
A. No, I beg leave to explain that I heard this story ; Croker tells it himself, and laughs a good deal at it ; I think more than a gentleman ought to laugh.
Q. Do you ever read ?
A. Yes : I read John Bull, the Array List, and the Newmarket Calender.
Q. How many tailors are there in London ?
A. Two.
Q. How many boot-makers ?
A. Five.
Q. Hatters?
A. Hats may be got any where in Bond-street or St. James’s-street.
Q. What is the most wonderful invention of modern times ?
A. The starched neckcloth.
Q. Who invented the starched neckcloth ?
A. Brummell.
Q. Give the particulars of this invention ?
A. When Brummell fell into disgrace, he devised the starched neckcloth, with the design of putting the Prince’s neck out of fashion, and of bringing his Royal Highness’s muslin, his bow, and wadding, into contempt. When he first appeared in this stiffened cravat, tradition says that the sensation in St. James’s-street was prodigious ; dandies were struck dumb with envy, and washer-women miscarried. No one could conceive how the effect was produced, , tin, card, a thousand contrivances were attempted, and innumerable men cut their throats in vain experiments ; the secret, in fact, puzzled and baffled every one, and poor dandy L–d died raving mad of it ; his mother, sister, and all his relations waited on Brummell, and on their knees implored him to save their kinsman’s life by the explanation of the mystery ; but the beaux was obdurate, and L. miserably perished. When B. fled from England, he left this secret a legacy to his country ; he wrote on a sheet of paper, on his dressing-table, the emphatic words, ” Starch is the man.”
Q. Is Brummell an authority now ?
A. No, none at all ; but still, in his exile, he has exercised an indirect influence on the coats and breeches of the age, for he suckles young dandies at Calais.
Q, Who is the king of the dandies now ?
A. There is no king, the two great tailors are dictators.
Q. Why is Mr. Hayne called Pea Green ; is it on account of his extraordinary greenness, or what is the reason ?
A. It is not on account of his greenness, that is a vulgar newspaper mistake ; but because he first came out in a pea green coat, which he threatened to turn to yellow in the autumn.
Q. Did you ever see any one eat fish with a knife ; I do not insult you by asking whether you are guilty of such an abomination ?
A. Never, Sir.
Q. But. you have heard of such practices ?
A. I have read of them, as of other vile practices, and know how to despise them.
Q. Suppose you were dining with the Guards, what should you eat ?
A. I should eat much pastry, for the Guards live on tarts, and support nature on various fruit pies.
Q. What should you drink with the Guards ?
A. Lemonade.
Q. What quantity of wine will an exquisite of the present day swallow, without making a beast of himself?
A. An exquisite of the first water will complain of head-ache, and confess intoxication after two glasses of light wine ; we are in fact no match for the women, many of whom will swallow a frightful quantity of liquor at dinner.
Q. Is there any place where it is right to wear boots in the evening ?
A. Yes ; the Opera.
Q. Why the Opera ?
A. Because there is an order against boots, and therefore, to appear in them there is a proof that one is somebody with the door keepers.
Q. What is the history of the standing order against trowsers at Almack’s ?
A. The Lady Patronesses took a disgust to those loose habits, and issued an order that no gentleman should appear in them who could not plead some personal deformity in apology for the concealment of his shapes.
Q. What was the consequence ?
A. The best made men in London went to Almack’s in trowsers, the patronesses ordered them out of the rooms, and the cavaliers thereupon craved a jury of matrons. On this the qualification was rescinded, and the order was made absolute.
Q. You have your gallantries?
A. I have had the honour of being scandalised as much, I flatter myself, as other men.
Q. Supposing a woman of fashion sets you down in her carriage, what is the established etiquette ?
A. To be rude.
Q. How do you make love to a chambermaid at an inn ?
A. I knock her down with the boot-jack.

CAETERA DESUNT.

Quoted from The London Magazine, May 1825