p boys along the line
of our Beau Brummell's promenade!

It was very natural to conceive that Charley was impressed with the
idea, that he was the envy of half the men, and the _beau_ ideal of all
the women he met! But your real dandy is no particular lover of women;
he very naturally so loves himself that he lavishes all his fond
affection upon his own person. So it was with our _beau_--he wouldn't
have risked dirtying his hands, soiling his "patent leathers," or
disarranging his scarf the thirteenth of an inch, to save a lady from a
mad bull, or being run down by a wheelbarrow! Charley, to be sure, would
walk with them, talk with them, beau them to the theatre, concert or
ball room, provided always--they were dressed all but to within half an
inch of their lives! The man who introduced a new and _stunnin_' hat,
scarf, or coat, Charley would swear friendship to, on sight! A shabby,
genteel person was his abomination; a patch or darn, utterly horrifying!
He lived, moved, breathed--ideally, his ideality based, of course, upon
ridiculous superfluities of life--leather and prunella, entirely.
Charley looked upon "a dirty day" as upon a villanously-dressed person,
while a bright, shining morn--giving him amplitude to make a "grand
dash," won from him the same encomiums to the producer that he would
bestow on the getter-up of an elegant pair of cassimeres--commendable
works of an artist! The _genus_ dandy, whether of savage or civilized
life, is a felicitous subject for peculiar, speculative, comparative
analogy or _analysis_; we shall pursue the shadow no farther, but come
to the substance.

After arriving at the establishment, Charley would strip off his "top
hamper," placing his finery in a closet with the care and diligence of a
maiden of thirty, and upwards. Then, donning a rude pair of over-alls
and coat, he condescended to go to work. Now, in the said establishment,
our _beau_ had few friends; the men, girls, and boys were "down" upon
him; the men, because of his dandyism; the females hated him, because
Charley stuck his long nose _up_ at "shop girls," and wouldn't no more
notice them in the streets, than if they were chimney sweepers or
decayed esculents! We boys didn't like him no how, generally, though it
was policy for him to treat us tolerably decent, because his pride made
it imperiously necessary that some of the "little breeches" should do
small chores, errands, bringing water from the street, carrying down t