t,
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action
With wrinkled brows, with nods, and rolling eyes."
SHAKESPEARE.

His stock of information is always of the most original kind, and no
want of it into the bargain. No one is acquainted with the facts
treasured in his memory but himself. Nor does he want any one else to
know, excepting a particular friend in whom he has the greatest
confidence. And he will only inform him in a whisper, lest any other
should hear; and this upon the sacred condition that he will never
discover the secret to his nearest friend, not even to the wife of his
bosom. And lo, when the grand secret is divulged into his inclining and
attentive ear, it is either an old story which everybody knows, or a
communication of gossip about some one in whom he has no interest
whatever.

Peter Hush is a Whisperer often met with in the ranks of life. He is a
descendant from an ancient family of that name, which has lived so long
that the origin can scarcely be traced out. He stands related to a vast
number of Hushes located in different parts of the world. It is the
business of Peter, in the first place, to walk around in the
neighbourhood where he resides in order to pick up what scraps of
information he can find. He cares not where he finds them, nor how, nor
what they are; he has a use for them. He collects stories in the private
history of individuals, mixed up with a slight degree of scandal. The
sickness of persons, evening parties, clandestine visits, secret
courtships, elopements, marriages, difficulties of tradesmen, quarrels
of husbands and wives, rumours from abroad respecting a newly located
neighbour, with such-like things, constitute the commodity which he
gathers. He is seldom or ever without a stock on hand; if he cannot give
you of one kind, he can of another. Sometimes I have met him in a
bye-road, and, before he told me what he had to say, he came close to
me, and being a little shorter than myself, stood on tip-toe, and
whispered in my ears; then telling me aloud, "Be sure now you say
nothing about it; I wouldn't have it repeated for all the world." Poor
Peter need not have been alarmed, for I knew the thing long before he
did. I have been alone with him in a large room, and he would take me up
one corner to whisper something in my ears. He has a way sometimes of
ending his whispering revelations with a loud, "Do not you think so?"
th