said the fellow with an odious grin.

I jumped out of the bed, and hurled the boot-jack at him with all my
strength; but had only the satisfaction to hear him go down stairs
chuckling at his escape; and as he reached the parlour, the increase of
mirth and the loudness of the laughter told me that he was not the only
one who was merry at my expense. Any thing was preferable to this; down
stairs I resolved to go at once--but how; a blanket I thought would not
be a bad thing, and particularly as I had said I was ill; I could at
least get as far as Colonel Kamworth's dressing-room, and explain to him
the whole affair; but then if I was detected en route, which I was almost
sure to be, with so many people parading about the house. No; that would
never do, there was but one alternative, and dreadful, shocking as it
was, I could not avoid it, and with a heavy heart, and as much
indignation at Waller for what I could not but consider a most scurvy
trick, I donned the yellow inexpressibles; next came the vest, and last
the coat, with its broad flaps and lace excrescenses, fifty times more
absurd and merry-andrew than any stage servant who makes off with his
table and two chairs amid the hisses and gibes of an upper gallery.

If my costume leaned towards the ridiculous, I resolved that my air and
bearing should be more than usually austere and haughty; and with
something of the stride of John Kemble in Coriolanus, I was leaving my
bed-room, when I accidentally caught a view of myself in the glass; and
so mortified, so shocked was I, that I sank into a chair, and almost
abandoned my resolution to go on; the very gesture I had assumed for
vindication only increased the ridicule of my appearance; and the strange
quaintness of the costume totally obliterated every trace of any
characteristic of the wearer, so infernally cunning was its contrivance.
I don't think that the most saturnine martyr of gout and dyspepsia could