n he was
consumed by astonished bewilderment, which increased as he turned
westward towards Cheapside, and approached the still fashionable
regions of Holborn and its environments.

The streets appeared to the country-bred youth to teem with life.
Everything he set eyes on was strange and wonderful. The shops with
their wares displayed, and noisy apprentices crying out to buyers,
or exchanging fisticuffs with each other by way of interlude; the
coaches carrying fine ladies hither and thither, tightly laced,
swelled out with hoops, their hair so towering in its lace and
powder as to provoke the query as to how it had ever attained such
gigantic proportions; the gay gallants in their enormous perukes of
powdered hair, and their wonderful flowered vests and gold-laced
coats--all these things provoked the keenest wonder and amazement
in Tom's breast; albeit he walked on without pausing to examine one
more than another, or to exchange a word with any save some
honest-looking shopman, of whom he would ask the way to Master
Cale's shop just off Holborn.

If Tom had lost on the way to London his servant and both his
horses, he had at least gained some information which might be of
more value to him than all the rest of his possessions; for Captain
Jack had told him to go to Master Cale's and lodge with him,
telling him who had sent him, and had added that he would put him
in the way of becoming a proper gentleman of fashion, without
fleecing him and rooking him, as would inevitably be the case if he
fell into the clutches of those birds of prey always on the lookout
for young squires from the country coming up to learn the ways of
the world, with a plentiful supply of guineas and inexperience.

Master Cale seemed to be well known, and he was directed to his
house in almost the same words by each person he asked. Master Cale
was a perruquier of no small popularity, who had risen through
honesty and ingenuity to be one of the most fashionable tradesmen
of the day. He also sold vests or waistcoats, lace-edged neck
cloths, gloves, sword scarfs and girdles, generally of his own
design; yet though his shop was regularly crowded with gallants and
courtiers, the man himself managed to preserve much of the honesty
and simplicity which had been his making in the days gone by.
Everybody liked and trusted Master Cale, and he was said to be the
best-informed man in London town on matters connected with the
court and its fashionable thr