we've got in the blue parlour? you'll never guess! I knew him the minute
I clapped eyes on him; dressed just as I saw him at the Haymarket
Theatre, the only night I ever was at a London stage play. The gray
coat, and the striped trousers, and the hessian boots over them, and the
straw hat out of all shape, and the gingham umbrella!"

"Who is he, ma'am?" said Frank. "Why, the great comedy actor, Mr.
Liston," replied the landlady, "come down for a holiday; he wants to be
quiet, so we must not blab, or the whole town will be after him."

This brief dialogue will account for much disquietude which subsequently
befell our ill fated Dumps. People met him, he could not imagine why,
with a broad grin on their features. As they passed they whispered to
each other, and the words "inimitable," "clever creature," "irresistibly
comic," evidently applied to himself, reached his ears.

Dumps looked more serious than ever; but the greater his gravity, the
more the people smiled, and one young lady actually laughed in his face
as she said aloud, "Oh, that mock heroic tragedy look is _so_ like
him!"

Sighmon sighed for the seclusion of number three, Burying Ground
Buildings, Paddington Road.

One morning his landlady announced, with broader grin than usual, that a
gentleman desired to speak with him; he grumbled, but submitted, and the
gentleman was announced.

"My name, sir, is Opie," said the stranger; "I am quite delighted to see
you here. You intend gratifying the good people of Tewksbury of course?"