kly and very
dissipated expression of countenance. His habiliments were composed of
an exquisite union of gentility, slovenliness, assumption, simplicity,
_newness_, and old age. Half of him was dressed for the winter, the
other half for the summer. His hat was of the newest cut, the D'Orsay;
his trousers had been white, but the inroads of mud and ink, etc., had
given them a pie-bald appearance; round his throat he wore a very high
black cravat, of the most tyrannical stiffness; while his _tout ensemble_
was hidden beneath the enormous folds of an old brown poodle-collared
great-coat, which was closely buttoned up to the aforesaid cravat. His
fingers peeped through the ends of his black kid gloves, and two of the
toes of each foot took a similar view of society through the extremities
of his high-lows. Sacred to the bare walls of his garret be the
mysteries of his interior dress! He was a short, spare man, of a
somewhat inferior deportment. Everybody seemed influenced by his entry
into the room, and his salutation of each member partook of the
patronizing. The hairdresser made way for him between himself and the
stomach. A minute afterwards he had taken possession of his pint and
pipe. A pause in the conversation took place. Everybody was waiting,
anxious for his first observation.

'Horrid murder in Westminster this morning,' observed Mr. Bolton.

Everybody changed their positions. All eyes were fixed upon the man of
paragraphs.

'A baker murdered his son by boiling him in a copper,' said Mr. Bolton.

'Good heavens!' exclaimed everybody, in simultaneous horror.

'Boiled him, gentlemen!' added Mr. Bolton, with the most effective
emphasis; '_boiled_ him!'

'And the particulars, Mr. B.,' inquired the hairdresser, 'the
particulars?'

Mr. Bolton took a very long draught of porter, and some two or three
dozen whiffs of tobacco, doubtless to instil into the commercial
capacities of the company the superiority of a gentlemen connected with
the press, and then said--

'The man was a baker, gentlemen.' (Every one looked at the baker
present, who stared at Bolton.) 'His victim, being his son, also was
necessarily the son of a baker. The wretched murderer had a wife, whom
he was frequently in the habit, while in an intoxicated state, of
kicking, pummelling, flinging mugs at, knocking down, and half-killing
while in bed, by inserting in her mouth a considerable portion of a sheet
or blanket.'

The speaker