elow, finds himself on the whole in a disadvantageous
position as compared with the noble animals at livery. For whereas, on
the one hand, he has no attendant to slap him soundingly and require him
in gruff accents to come up and come over, still, on the other hand,
he has no attendant at all; and the mild gentleman's finger-joints and
other joints working rustily in the morning, he could deem it agreeable
even to be tied up by the countenance at his chamber-door, so he were
there skilfully rubbed down and slushed and sluiced and polished and
clothed, while himself taking merely a passive part in these trying
transactions.

How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself for the
bewilderment of the senses of men, is known only to the Graces and her
maid; but perhaps even that engaging creature, though not reduced to
the self-dependence of Twemlow could dispense with a good deal of the
trouble attendant on the daily restoration of her charms, seeing that
as to her face and neck this adorable divinity is, as it were, a diurnal
species of lobster--throwing off a shell every forenoon, and needing to
keep in a retired spot until the new crust hardens.

Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar and cravat
and wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth forth to breakfast. And to
breakfast with whom but his near neighbours, the Lammles of Sackville
Street, who have imparted to him that he will meet his distant kinsman,
Mr Fledgely. The awful Snigsworth might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, but
the peaceable Twemlow reasons, If he IS my kinsman I didn't make him so,
and to meet a man is not to know him.'

It is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr and Mrs Lammle,
and the celebration is a breakfast, because a dinner on the desired
scale of sumptuosity cannot be achieved within less limits than those
of the non-existent palatial residence of which so many people are
madly envious. So, Twemlow trips with not a little stiffness across
Piccadilly, sensible of having once been more upright in figure and less
in danger of being knocked down by swift vehicles. To be sure that was
in the days when he hoped for leave from the dread Snigsworth to do
something, or be something, in life, and before that magnificent Tartar
issued the ukase, 'As he will never distinguish himself, he must be a
poor gentleman-pensioner of mine, and let him hereby consider himself
pensioned.'

Ah! my Twemlow! Say, little feeble