y slow in paying
for the breeches in which they took pride!

Mr. Neefit's fortune had not been rapid in early life. He had begun
with a small capital and a small establishment, and even now his
place of business was very limited in size. He had been clever enough
to make profit even out of its smallness,--and had contrived that
it should be understood that the little back room in which men were
measured was so diminutive because it did not suit his special
business to welcome a crowd. It was his pride, he said, to wait upon
hunting men,--but with the garments of the world at large he wished
to have no concern whatever. In the outer shop, looking into Conduit
Street, there was a long counter on which goods were unrolled for
inspection; and on which an artist, the solemnity of whose brow and
whose rigid silence betokened the nature of his great employment,
was always cutting out leather. This grave man was a German, and
there was a rumour among young sportsmen that old Neefit paid
this highly-skilled operator L600 a year for his services! Nobody
knew as he did how each morsel of leather would behave itself
under the needle, or could come within two hairbreadths of him
in accuracy across the kneepan. As for measuring, Mr. Neefit did
that himself,--almost always. To be measured by Mr. Neefit was as
essential to perfection as to be cut out for by the German. There
were rumours, indeed, that from certain classes of customers Mr.
Neefit and the great foreigner kept themselves personally aloof. It
was believed that Mr. Neefit would not condescend to measure a retail
tradesman. Latterly, indeed, there had arisen a doubt whether he
would lay his august hand on a stockbroker's leg; though little
Wallop, one of the young glories of Capel Court, swears that he is
handled by him every year. "Confound 'is impudence," says Wallop;
"I'd like to see him sending a foreman to me. And as for cutting,
d'you think I don't know Bawwah's 'and!" The name of the foreign
artist is not exactly known; but it is pronounced as we have written
it, and spelt in that fashion by sporting gentlemen when writing to
each other.

Our readers may be told in confidence that up to a very late date
Mr. Neefit lived in the rooms over his shop. This is certainly not
the thing for a prosperous tradesman to do. Indeed, if a tradesman
be known not to have a private residence, he will hardly become
prosperous. But Neefit had been a cautious man, and till two years