intimados_, to confess a truth, were in the world's eye a ragged
regiment. He found them floating on the surface of society; and the
colour, or something else, in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck
to him--but they were gbod and loving burrs for all that. He never
greatly cared for the society of what are called good people. If any
of these were scandalised (and offences were sure to arise), he could
not help it. When he has been remonstrated with for not making more
concessions to the feelings of good people, he would retort by asking,
what one point did these good people ever concede to him? He was
temperate in his meals and diversions, but always kept a little on
this side of abstemiousness. Only in the use of the Indian weed he
might be thought a little excessive. He took it, he would say, as
a solvent of speech. Marry--as the friendly vapour ascended, how
his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which
tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded a statist!

I do not know whether I ought to bemoan or rejoice that my old friend
is departed. His jests were beginning to grow obsolete, and his
stories to be found out. He felt the approaches of age; and while he
pretended to cling to life, you saw how slender were the ties left to
bind him. Discoursing with him latterly on this subject, he expressed
himself with a pettishness, which I thought unworthy of him. In our
walks about his suburban retreat (as he called it) at Shacklewell,
some children belonging to a school of industry had met us, and bowed
and curtseyed, as he thought, in an especial manner to _him_. "They
take me for a visiting governor," he muttered earnestly. He had
a horror, which he carried to a foible, of looking like anything
important and parochial. He thought that he approached nearer to that
stamp daily.. He had a general aversion from being treated like a
grave or respectable character, and kept a wary eye upon the advances
of age that should so entitle him. He herded always, while it was
possible, with people younger than himself. He did not conform to the
march of time, but was dragged along in the procession. His manners
lagged behind his years. He was too much of the boy-man. The _toga
virilis_ never sate gracefully on his shoulders. The impressions
of infancy had burnt into him, and he resented the impertinence of
manhood. These were weaknesses; but such as they were, they are a key
to explicate some of his