reply, when he was accosted abruptly by three men
of that exaggerated style of dress and manner which is implied by the
vulgar appellation of "Tigrish." Each of the three men had a cigar in
his mouth, each seemed flushed with wine. One wore long brass spurs and
immense mustaches; another was distinguished by an enormous surface of
black satin cravat, across which meandered a Pactolus of gold chain;
a third had his coat laced and braided a la Polonaise, and pinched and
padded a la Russe, with trousers shaped to the calf of a sinewy leg, and
a glass screwed into his right eye.

"Ah, Gabriel! ah, Varney! ah, prince of good fellows, well met! You sup
with us to-night at little Celeste's; we were just going in search of
you."

"Who's your friend,--one of us?" whispered a second. And the third
screwed his arm tight and lovingly into Varney's.

Gabriel, despite his habitual assurance, looked abashed foz a moment,
and would have extricated himself from cordialities not at that moment
welcome; but he saw that his friends were too far gone in their cups
to be easily shaken off, and he felt relieved when Percival, after a
dissatisfied glance at the three, said quietly: "I must detain you no
longer; I shall soon look in at your studio;" and without waiting for an
answer, slid off, and was lost among the crowd.

Varney walked on with his new-found friends, unheeding for some moments
their loose remarks and familiar banter. At length he shook off his
abstraction, and surrendering himself to the coarse humours of his
companions, soon eclipsed them all by the gusto of his slang and the
mocking profligacy of his sentiments; for here he no longer played a
part, or suppressed his grosser instincts. That uncurbed dominion of the
senses, to which his very boyhood had abandoned itself, found a willing
slave in the man. Even the talents themselves that he displayed came
from the cultivation of the sensual. His eye, studying externals, made
him a painter,--his ear, quick and practised, a musician. His wild,
prodigal fancy rioted on every excitement, and brought him in a vast
harvest of experience in knowledge of the frailties and the vices on
which it indulged its vagrant experiments. Men who over-cultivate the
art that connects itself with the senses, with little counterpoise from
the reason and pure intellect, are apt to be dissipated and irregular
in their lives. This is frequently noticeable in the biographies of
musicians, singers, a