toed, and thick-soled; one was even
patched on the side. The trousers were heavy and rough, of the kind
advertised as "wear-resisting fabrics, suitable for youths at school,"
frayed at the ends, and shiny--shamefully shiny--about the knees!

In hot despair he rapidly passed his hands over his body. It felt
unusually small and slim, Mr. Bultitude being endowed with what is
euphemistically termed a "presence," and it was with an agony rarely
felt at such a discovery that he realised that, for the first time for
more than twenty years, he actually had a waist.

Then, as a last resource, he took off his hat and felt for the broad,
smooth, egg-like surface, garnished by scanty side patches of thin hair,
which he knew he ought to find.

It was gone--hidden under a crop of thick close curling locks!

This last disappointment completely overcame him; he had a kind of short
fit in the cab as the bitter truth was brought home to him unmistakably.

Yes, this was no dream of a distempered digestion, but sober reality.
The whole of that horrible scene in the dining-room had really taken
place; and now he, Paul Bultitude, the widely-respected merchant of
Mincing Lane, a man of means and position, was being ignominiously
packed off to school as if he were actually the schoolboy some hideous
juggle had made him appear!

It was only with a violent effort that he could succeed in commanding
his thoughts sufficiently to decide on some immediate action. "I must be
cool," he kept muttering to himself, with shaking lips, "quite cool and
collected. Everything will depend on that now!"

It was some comfort to him in this extremity to recognise on the box the
well-known broad back of Clegg, a cabman who stabled his two horses in
some mews near Praed Street, and whom he had been accustomed to
patronise in bad weather for several years.

Clegg would know him, in spite of his ridiculous transformation.

His idea was to stop the cab, and turn round and drive home again, when
they would find that he was not to be got rid of again quite so easily.
If Dick imagined he meant to put up tamely with this kind of treatment,
he was vastly mistaken; he would return home boldly and claim his
rights!

No reasonable person could be perverse enough to doubt his identity when
once matters came to the proof; though at first, of course, he might
find a difficulty in establishing it. His children, his clerks, and his
servants would soon get used to his ap