It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew everybody,
but that scarcely any event of importance or notoriety had occurred
for many years with which they had not been in some way or other
connected. Thus we learned that when the well-known attempt upon
the life of George the Third was made by Hatfield in Drury Lane
theatre, the egotistical gentleman's grandfather sat upon his right
hand and was the first man who collared him; and that the
egotistical lady's aunt, sitting within a few boxes of the royal
party, was the only person in the audience who heard his Majesty
exclaim, 'Charlotte, Charlotte, don't be frightened, don't be
frightened; they're letting off squibs, they're letting off
squibs.' When the fire broke out, which ended in the destruction
of the two Houses of Parliament, the egotistical couple, being at
the time at a drawing-room window on Blackheath, then and there
simultaneously exclaimed, to the astonishment of a whole party--
'It's the House of Lords!' Nor was this a solitary instance of
their peculiar discernment, for chancing to be (as by a comparison
of dates and circumstances they afterwards found) in the same
omnibus with Mr. Greenacre, when he carried his victim's head about
town in a blue bag, they both remarked a singular twitching in the
muscles of his countenance; and walking down Fish Street Hill, a
few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman said to his lady--
slightly casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument--'There's a
boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible.
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