Charles Yellowplush, footman, gives his opinion of his employers, their debts, their marriages and their morals, in his own spelling. Thackeray was born in Calcutta, sent home at five, and lost much of his inheritance at cards; these 1837 sketches are where he found his voice — the joke is not the servant's ignorance, it is that he is the only person in the house who sees everything clearly. Forty-nine plates after Hogarth and Morland track the same comic world of cards, drink and family fortunes from 1730 to 1838, so the footman's satire arrives with its own picture gallery.