hiskers, and can't
see his whiskers for the dye upon 'em. That's a gentleman ain't it? You
wouldn't like a ride in a cab, would you? Why, it wouldn't be safe to
offer it. You'd faint away, only to see me a-comin' at a mild trot round
the corner.'

To convey a slight idea of the effect of this approach, Mr Bailey
counterfeited in his own person the action of a high-trotting horse and
threw up his head so high, in backing against a pump, that he shook his
hat off.

'Why, he's own uncle to Capricorn,' said Bailey, 'and brother to
Cauliflower. He's been through the winders of two chaney shops since
we've had him, and was sold for killin' his missis. That's a horse, I
hope?'

'Ah! you'll never want to buy any more red polls, now,' observed Poll,
looking on his young friend with an air of melancholy. 'You'll never
want to buy any more red polls now, to hang up over the sink, will you?'

'I should think not,' replied Bailey. 'Reether so. I wouldn't have
nothin' to say to any bird below a Peacock; and HE'd be wulgar. Well,
how are you?'

'Oh! I'm pretty well,' said Poll. He answered the question again because
Mr Bailey asked it again; Mr Bailey asked it again, because--accompanied
with a straddling action of the white cords, a bend of the knees, and a
striking forth of the top-boots--it was an easy horse-fleshy, turfy sort
of thing to do.

'Wot are you up to, old feller?' added Mr Bailey, with the same graceful
rakishness. He was quite the man-about-town of the conversation, while
the easy-shaver was the child.

'Why, I am going to fetch my lodger home,' said Paul.

'A woman!' cried Mr Bailey, 'for a twenty-pun' note!'

The little barber hastened to explain that she was neither a young
woman, nor a handsome woman, but a nurse, who had been acting as a kind
of house-keeper to a gentleman for some weeks past, and left her place
that night, in consequence of being superseded by another and a more
legitimate house-keeper--to wit, the gentleman's bride.

'He's newly married, and he brings his young wife home to-night,' said
the barber. 'So I'm going to fetch my lodger away--Mr Chuzzlewit's,
close behind the Post Office--and carry her box for her.'

'Jonas Chuzzlewit's?' said Bailey.

'Ah!' returned Paul: 'that's the name sure enough. Do you know him?'

'Oh, no!' cried Mr Bailey; 'not at all. And I don't know her! Not
neither! Why, they first kept company through me, a'most.'

'Ah?' said Paul.

'Ah!' said Mr Baile