maintain his health at its best for the service of his country.
But all was of no avail, and Lothario was cast out. His jocular friend, too, was sent after him; for it was held that to speak so lightly of such grave social delinquencies was even a grosser outrage upon good manners than the commission of the offence. Such loose speech was especially injurious to the young; and it is chiefly as to them that even mere external proprieties have inestimable value. The remarkable movement, thus begun, extended generally through the clubs; and such of them as lacked the moral fibre for the proper scavengering of the house were relegated to a second rank, to become a sort of demi-monde of club life.
But the new views were not without their difficulties of practical application. Here, for instance, is some well-known old sinner, but now quite venerable from age, its infirmities, and its proprieties. There can be no possible doubt about his past life, for he was wont openly to boast of his successful libertinism, and he showed at the time the lightest of hearts over the track of human misery he might be leaving behind him. But when age, or early excess, or both together, had deprived him alike of power and enjoyment in the old way, he became a changed, nay, even a religious man—became, in fact, "rather more respectable than other people." What, then, was to be done with this perplexing specimen? When his parson might be assuring him that he was safely qualifying for heaven, was he to be deemed unsuitable company for a mere earthly club? But by this time, alas for, at least, his earthly prospects, a spirit of true equity had set
