He assures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born
fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant,
have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads
hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional button,
recommending gaiters; but to come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury,
neither becomes him as a tailor or the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman
was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse
shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of four guineas, some
shillings and halfpence, and a bundle of customers' measures, which they
swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he
addressed them with profound gratitude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I
wish you good-night; and we are very much obliged to you that you have
not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has the audacity to foist
upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet collar,--a cursed ninth
of a scoundrel!
When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address
him as _Mr._ C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well.
Yours sincerely,
C. LAMB.
[1] This quaint scholar, a marvel of simplicity and universal optimism,
is a constantly recurring and delightfully humorous character in the
Letters. Lamb and Dyer had been schoolfellows at Christ's Hospital.
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