A Rogue's Life

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CHAPTER I.

I AM going to try if I can’t write something about myself. My life
has been rather a strange one. It may not seem particularly useful or
respectable; but it has been, in some respects, adventurous; and that
may give it claims to be read, even in the most prejudiced circles. I
am an example of some of the workings of the social system of this
illustrious country on the individual native, during the early part of
the present century; and, if I may say so without unbecoming vanity, I
should like to quote myself for the edification of my countrymen.

Who am I.

I am remarkably well connected, I can tell you. I came into this world
with the great advantage of having Lady Malkinshaw for a grandmother,
her ladyship’s daughter for a mother, and Francis James Softly, Esq., M.
D. (commonly called Doctor Softly), for a father. I put my father last,
because he was not so well connected as my mother, and my grandmother
first, because she was the most nobly-born person of the three. I have
been, am still, and may continue to be, a Rogue; but I hope I am not
abandoned enough yet to forget the respect that is due to rank. On this
account, I trust, nobody will show such want of regard for my feelings
as to expect me to say much about my mother’s brother. That inhuman
person committed an outrage on his family by making a fortune in the
soap and candle trade. I apologize for mentioning him, even in an
accidental way. The fact is, he left my sister, Annabella, a legacy of
rather a peculiar kind, saddled with certain conditions which indirectly
affected me; but this passage of family history need not be produced
just yet. I apologize a second time for alluding to money matters before
it was absolutely necessary. Let me get back to a pleasing