t one time a pot of bear's grease away
by the mail, in a wig-box, to a member of parliament in Yorkshire; and
burned a whole batch of baked hair to ashes, while singing Moore's 'When
he who adores thee,' in attitude, before a block, dressed up for the
occasion with a fashionable wig upon it--to say nothing of my having, in
a fit of abstraction, given a beautiful young lady, who was going that
same evening to a Lord Mayor's ball, the complete charity-workhouse cut,
leaving her scalp as bare as the back of my hand. But cheer up!--to my
happy astonishment, sir, matters worked like a charm. What a
parley-vooing and billet-dooing passed between us! We would have
required a porter for the sole purpose. Then we had stolen interviews
of two hours' duration each, for several successive nights, at the
old horologer's back-door, during which, besides a multiplicity of
small-talk--thanks to his deafness--I tried my utmost to entrap her
affections, by reciting sonnets, and spouting bits of plays in the
manner of the tragedy performers. These were the happy times, sir! The
world was changed for me. Paddington canal seemed the river Pactolus,
and Rag-Fair Elysium!

"The old boy, however, ignorant of our orgies, was still bothering
his brains to bring about matrimony between his daughter and the
veteran--who, though no younger than Methusalem, as stiff as the
Monument, and as withered as Belzoni's Piccadilly mummy, had yet
the needful, sir--had abundance of the wherewithal--crops of yellow
shiners--lots of the real--sported a gig, and kept on board wages a
young shaver of all work, with a buff jacket, turned up with sky-blue
facings. Only think, sir--only ponder for a moment what a formidable
rival I had!"

"I hope you beat him off, however," said I. "The greater danger the more
honour you know, Mr. Tims."

"Of that anon, sir.--Lucy, on her part, angelic creature, professed that
she could not dream of being undutiful towards kind old Pa; and that,
unless desperate measures were resorted to, _quamprimum_, in the
twinkling of a bed-post she would be under the disagreeable necessity to
bundle and go with the disabled man of war to the temple of Hymen.
Sacrilegious thought! I could not permit it to enter my bosom, and
(pardon me for a moment, sir) when I looked down, and caught a glance of
my own natty-looking, tight little leg, and dapper Hessians, I
recommended her strongly to act on the principle of the Drury-lane
play-bill, which s