one from the other, taking them as a lot; but still, I feel
that it is better to remain in my Stall, where only the upper part
of me is visible to the unclothed eye. The consciousness that I am
here, not as myself, but in disguise as somebody else, name unknown,
rather oppresses me; only at first, however, as very soon I recognise
a number of familiar faces and figures all in strange array. A
stockbroker or two, a few journalists, several ordinary people
belonging to various callings and professions, some others noble, some
gentle, some simple, but most of us eyeing each other furtively, and
wondering where the deuce the other fellow got his costume from, and
what right he has to wear it.

Every moment I expect some gaily attired person to come up and say to
me confidentially, "I know that suit; I wore it last so-and-so. Isn't
it a trifle tight about the shoulders? Beware! when I wore it, it
went a bit in the back." Man in gorgeous uniform makes his way to
the vacant Stall next to me. I am a bit flustered until he salutes me
heartily with--"How d'ye do? How are you?" Why, it's--well, no matter
who it is. I have met him everywhere for years; we are the best of
friends. I knew he is something; somewhere in the City, but not much
anywhere else, and at all events he is no more a military man than I
am a courtier, but when he confides to me that he was once upon a time
in the Dampshire Yeomanry, and that this uniform has served him for
years, and looks uncommonly well at night though it wouldn't bear the
light of day, I begin to comprehend the entire scene.

My friend--we will call him TOMMY TUCKER, (for I have frequently
encountered him at supper, and am aware of his capacity)--is full of
information. Some of our neighbours of an inquiring turn are asking
one another who _that_ is, and who _this_ is, and so forth; and when
the answers are incorrect, or even before the answers can be given,
TOMMY TUCKER has replied in a low voice, with a view to imparting
general information gratis, that So-and-So, in scarlet and silver, is
Mr. BLACKSTONE, of BLACKSTONE & SONS, head of the great Coal Merchant
Firm; that the man in blue and silver, supposed to be a Hungarian
_attache_, is the junior partner in BUNNUMS & Co., the Big Cake
Purveyor; and that the warlike person, with a jingling sabre, is not
a Prussian officer, but is Deputy JONES, in the gorgeous uniform of
the Old Buckshire Yeomanry; and when he's in the City, where he began