seemed to know each other very well, as if they
were some young club of genial spirits that had been organized outside of
the barriers of society for a long while. What funny habiliments they
sported. It had never been my experience to see old clothes thrown upon
young limbs so grotesquely. The coat that would have been a fit for a
corpulent youth nearly buried a skinny form the height of your cane.

"And on the other hand, 'young dropsy's' legs and arms were like links of
dried 'bolonas' in the garments which misfortune's raffle had drawn for
him. Hats without rims--hats of fur, dreadfully plucked, with free
ventilation for the scalp--caps with big tips like little porches of
leather--caps without tips, or, if a tip still clung to it, it was by a
single thread and dangled on the wearer's cheek like the husk of a
banana. The majority seemed to have a weakness for the costumes of the
army and the navy. Where a domestic tailor had clipped the skirts of a
long blue military coat he had spared the two buttons of the waist-band,
and they rested on the bare heels like a set of veritable spurs. Shoes
and boots (and remember it's a December night) are rather scarce--and
those by which these savoyards could have sworn by grinned fearfully with
sets of naked toes. One 'young sport,' he had seen scarcely ten such
winters, rejoiced in a pair of odd-mated rubber over-shoes, about the
dimensions of snow-shoes. They saluted him as 'Gums.' A youngster, with
a childish face and clear blue eyes, now shuffled upon the scene.

"'O Lordy, here's Horace, jist see his get up.' A shout of laughter went
up, and Horace was swallowed in the ragged mob.

"'Horace' sported a big army cap like a huge blue extinguisher. He
wrapped his wiry form in a cut-down, long-napped white beaver coat, the
lapels of which were a foot square, and shingled his ankles as if he
stood between a couple of placards. I had seen the latest caricature on
the philosopher of the _Tribune_, but this second edition of H. G.
swamped it. I knew that that young rogue had counted upon the effect of
his white coat, and he enjoyed his christening with a gleeful face and a
sparkle in his blue eyes. O, for the pencil of a Beard or a Bellew, to
portray those saucy pug-noses, those dirty and begrimed faces! Faces
with bars of blacking, like the shadows of small gridirons--faces with
woful bruised peepers--faces with fun-flashing eyes--faces of striplings,
yet so old and