end of his taper tail.

Saunders got up, and began handling the new things. First he held
up a pair of bright blue trousers, with a red stripe across them,
Drysdale looking on from the sofa. "I say, Drysdale, you don't
mean to say you really ordered these thunder-and-lightening
affairs?"

"Heaven only knows," said Drysdale; "I daresay I did, I'd order a
full suit cut out of my grandmother's farthingale to get that
cursed Schloss out of my rooms sometimes."

"You'll never be able to wear them; even in Oxford the boys would
mob you. Why don't you kick him down stairs?" suggested Sanders,
putting down the trousers, and turning to Drysdale.

"Well, I've been very near it once or twice; but I don't know--my
name's Easy--besides, I don't want to give up the beast
altogether; he makes the best trousers in England."

"And these waistcoats," went on Sanders; "let me see; three light
silk waistcoats, peach-color, fawn-color, and lavender. Well, of
course, you can only wear these at your weddings. You may be
married the first time in the peach or fawn-color; and then, if
you have luck, and bury your first wife soon, it will be a
delicate compliment to take to No.2 in the lavender, that being
half-mourning; but still, you see, we're in difficulty as to one
of the three, either the peach or the fawn-color-"

Here he was interrupted by another knock, and a boy entered from
the fashionable tobacconist's in Oriel Lane, who had general
orders to let Drysdale have his fair share of anything very
special in the cigar line. He deposited a two pound box of cigars
at three guineas the pound, on the table, and withdrew in
silence.

Then came a boot-maker with a new pair of top-boots, which
Drysdale had ordered in November, and had forgotten next day. The
artist, wisely considering that his young patron must have plenty
of tops to last him through the hunting season (he himself having
supplied three previous pairs in October), had retained the
present pair for show in his window; and everyone knows that
boots wear much better for being kept sometime before use. Now,
however, as the hunting season was drawing to a close, and the
place in the window was wanted for spring stock, he judiciously
sent in the tops, merely adding half-a-sovereign or so to the
price for interest on the out lay since the order. He also kindly
left on the table a pair of large plated spurs to match the
boots.

It never rains but it pours. Sanders sat smokin