ey Tiffles, or Wesley Tiffles, as he
always subscribed himself on promissory notes and other worthless paper.
Mr. Tiffles chucked Mash familiarly under the chin (resented with a
scornful look by Mash, who had learned from "The Buttery and the
Boudoir" to set a proper value on herself), and then walked straight to
the parlor, like one who knew he was a welcome guest.

And he was right. For when he opened the door, and disclosed to the
three bachelors the well-known laughing eyes, hopeful face, and spare
figure of Wesley Tiffles, they hailed him with enthusiasm. He was a
walking cure for despondency, although he sometimes charged too high, in
the shape of borrowed money, for his professional services. But neither
of the three bachelors had yet sustained that pecuniary tax which Wesley
Tiffles always levied upon his friends, just before leaving them
forever. They formed a part of his reserve corps, which had latterly
been sadly thinned out in Mr. Tiffles's desperate contest with
the world.

Mr. Tiffles shook hands with Marcus Wilkeson, giving him the grip of
some unknown Order, slapped Overtop on the back, and playfully pulled
the whiskers of Maltboy. Then he filled a pipe, threw himself into a
chair, adjusted his legs in the true form of a compass, and opened his
coat ostentatiously. All this in about ten seconds, and with a geniality
that defied reproof. He was the very embodiment of cheer.

"Prepare to be astonished," said Mr. Tiffles, after his third whiff. "I
have a splendid idea." The three bachelors smiled, and nodded an
intimation that they were prepared,

"I have had some impracticable notions in my time; but this _is_ good,
and you'll say so. You know that dog, Mark, two doors below--the large
yellow one, with cropped ears, and a tail like the handle of a
shaving brush?"

Mr. Wilkeson replied that he had the pleasure of the animal's
acquaintance,

"Well, as I was passing the dog's house on my way here, I slipped in the
snow. The dog, always on the alert for victims, took a mean advantage of
my situation, and jumped after me through the open gate. I scrambled to
my feet, but not before he had fastened his teeth in my right leg----"

"Good heavens! was he mad?" cried Overtop, who had a horror of dogs, and
made wide circuits about them in the street.

"Can't say as to that," replied Wesley Tiffles, "but advise you to keep
shy of him for the future, I was about to say that he bit me through the
leg of my tr