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The Study of a Loving Heart.
Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be going past, but had its little inconveniences at other times, among which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and shrubbery.
Sir Barnet Skettles expressed his personal consequence chiefly through an antique gold snuffbox, and a ponderous silk pocket-kerchief, which he had an imposing manner of drawing out of his pocket like a banner and using with both hands at once.

Sir Barnet's object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance.

Like a heavy body dropped into water--not to disparage so worthy a gentleman by the comparison--it was in the nature of things that Sir Barnet must spread an ever widening circle about him, until there was no room left.
Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which, according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may go on travelling for ever through the interminable fields of space, nothing but coming to the end of his moral tether could stop Sir Barnet Skettles in his voyage of discovery through the social system.
Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people.

He liked the thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favourite object too.
For example, if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a law recruit, or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to his hospitable villa, Sir Barnet would say to him, on the morning after his arrival, 'Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like to know?
Who is there you would wish to meet?
Do you take any interest in writing people, or in painting or sculpturing people, or in acting people, or in anything of that sort ?' Possibly the patient answered yes, and mentioned somebody, of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal knowledge than of Ptolemy the Great.