I have felt more at home in the dock (such is the natural depravity and perversity of my disposition) than ever I felt in the drawing-rooms of my father's distinguished patrons and respectable friends.

Nor did my miseries end with the morning calls.

I was commanded to attend all dinner-parties, and to make myself agreeable at all balls.

The dinners were the worst trial.

Sometimes, indeed, we contrived to get ourselves asked to the houses of high and mighty entertainers, where we ate the finest French dishes and drank the oldest vintages, and fortified ourselves sensibly and snugly in that way against the frigidity of the company.