Page:The Happy Hypocrite - Beerbohm - 1897.pdf/9

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The Happy Hypocrite

By Max Beerbohm

None, it is said, of all who revelled with the Regent, was half so wicked as Lord George Hell. I will not trouble my little readers with a long recital of his great naughtiness. But it were well they should know that he was greedy, destructive, and disobedient. I am afraid there is no doubt that he often sat up at Carlton House until long after bed-time, playing at games, and that he generally ate and drank far more than was good for him. His fondness for fine clothes was such, that he used to dress on week-days quite as gorgeously as good people dress on Sundays. He was thirty-five years old and a great grief to his parents.

And the worst of it was that he set such a bad example to others, Never, never did he try to conceal his wrong-