THE BEST AUTHORITY.

I WISH he was not so ubiquitous.

I wish he was not always having people to
dine with him, into whom he crams all manner
of confidences, and who come from his
too hospitable board to harass my soul with
special intelligence (which is never true),
upon all the subjects that arise in Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America. I wish to Heaven
he would dine out!

Yet, that is a weak wish, because he does
dine out. He makes a habit of dining out.
He is always dining out. How could I be
the confused, perplexed, benighted wretch I
am, but for everybody I know, meeting him
at dinner everywhere, and receiving
information from him which they impart to me?
I wish he would hold his tongue!

Yet, that is another weak wish, because
when he does hold his tongue, I am none the
better for it. His silence is used against me.
If I mention to my friend, Pottington, any
little scrap of fact of which in my very humble
way I may have become possessed, Pottington
says, that's very odd, he hardly thinks it
can be, he will tell me why; dining yesterday
at Croxford's he happened to sit next to
the Best Authority, and had a good deal of
talk with him, and yet he never said a word
to lead him to suppose—

This brings me to inquire how does it
happen that everybody always sits next him?
At a dinner of eighteen persons, I have known
seventeen sit next him. Nay, at a public
dinner of one hundred and thirty, I have
known one hundred and twenty-nine sit next
him. How is it done ? In his ardent desire
to impart special intelligence to his fellow-
men, does he shift his position constantly,
and sit upon all the chairs in the social circle
successively? If he does so, it is obvious
that he has no moral right to represent to
each individual member of the company that
his communication is of an exclusive
character, and that he is impelled to it by strong
personal consideration and respect. Yet I
find that he invariably makes some such
representation. I augur from this, that he
is a deceiver.

What is his calling in life, that it leaves
him so much time upon his hands? He is
always at all the clubs—must spend a respectable
income in annual club subscriptions alone.
He is always in all the streets, and is met in
the market-places by all sorts and conditions
of men. Who is his bootmaker? Who cuts
his corns? He is always going up and down
the pavements, and must have corns of a
prodigious size.

I object to his being addicted to compliments
and flattery. I boldly publish this accusation
against him, because I have several
respected friends who would scorn to
compliment themselves, whom he is always
complimenting. For example. He meets my
dear Flounceby (whom I regard as a brother),
at a mutual friend's—there again! He is
mutual friends with everybody!—and I find
that he prefaces his communications to
Flounceby, with such expressions as these:
"Mr. Flounceby, I do not wish what I am
about to mention, to go any further; it is a
matter of some little delicacy which I should
not consider myself justified in speaking of
to general society; but, knowing your
remarkable powers, your delicate discrimination,
and great discretion," &c. All of which,
my dear Flounceby, in the modest
truthfulness of his nature, feels constrained to
repeat to me! This is the Best Authority's
didactic style; but, I observe him
also, by incidental strokes, artfully to convey
complimentary touches of character into
casual dialogue. As when he remarks, in
reference to some handsome reticence on my
friend's part, " Ah Flounceby! Your usual
reserve in committing others!" Or, " Your
expressive eye, my dear Mr. Flounceby,
discloses what your honourable tongue would
desire to conceal!" And the like. All of
which, Flounceby, in his severe determination
to convey to me the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, repeats,
with evident pain to his modesty.

Is he a burglar, or of the swell mob ? I
do not accuse him of occupying either position
(which would be libellous), but I ask
for information. Because my mind is
tormented by his perpetually getting into houses
into which he would seem to have no lawful
open way, and by his continually diving into
people's pocket-books in an otherwise
inexplicable manner. In respect of getting into
the Queen's Palace, the Boy Jones was a
fool to him. He knows everything that