months, the clothes with which I had come to London were
beginning to look the worse for wear, and this afflicted me greatly just
at a time when I found myself constantly in the society of these
grandees. I remember one entire evening at Doubleday's sitting with my
left arm close in to my side because of a hole under the armpit; and on
another occasion borrowing Mrs Nash's scissors to trim the ends of my
trousers before going to spend the evening at Daly's.

That occasion, by the way, was the Tuesday when, according to
invitation, I was to go up to the lodgings of Daly and the Field-
Marshal, there to meet my old schoolfellow Flanagan.

I had looked forward not a little to this meeting, and was secretly glad
that he would find me one of a set represented by such respectable and
flourishing persons as Doubleday and Daly. When, a fortnight before,
Smith and I had hunted up and down his street to find him, I knew
nothing of "what was what" compared with what I did now. I was
determined to make an impression on my old schoolfellow; and therefore,
as I have said, trimmed up the ends of my trousers with Mrs Nash's
scissors, invested in a new (cheap), necktie, and carefully doctored the
seam under my armpit with ink and blacking.

Thus decorated I hurried off to my host's lodgings. The first thing I
saw as I entered the door filled me with mortification. It was
Flanagan, dressed in a loud check suit, with a stick-up collar and a
horseshoe scarf-pin--with cloth "spats" over his boots, and cuffs that
projected at least two inches from the ends of his coat sleeves.

I felt so shabby and disreputable that I was tempted to turn tail and
escape. I had all along hoped that Flanagan would be got up in a style
which would keep me in countenance, and make me feel rather more at home
than I did among the other stylish fellows of the set. But so far from
that being the case, here he was the most howling swell of them all.

Before I could recover from the surprise and disappointment I felt he
had seen me, and advanced with all his old noisy frankness.

"Hullo! here he is. How are you, Batchelor? Here we are again, eh?
Rather better than the Henniker's parlour, eh?"

I forgot all my disappointment for a moment in the pleasure of meeting
him. In voice and manner at least he was the Flanagan of old days. Why
couldn't he dress rather more quietly?

Daly was there in all his glory, and the Field-Marshal as lank and
cadaverous