best tailor, and said, 'give me a collar like Lord So and So's,'; one who
would not dare to have a new waistcoat till it had been authoritatively
patronized, and who took his fashions, like his follies, from the best
proficients. Such fellows are always too ashamed of themselves not to be
proud of their clothes--like the Chinese mariners, they burn incense
before the needle!"

"And Mr. Howard de Howard," said I, laughing, "what do you think of him?"

"What! the thin secretary?" cried Vincent.

"He is the mathematical definition of a straight line--length without
breadth. His inseparable friend, Mr. Aberton, was running up the Rue St.
Honore yesterday in order to catch him."

"Running!" cried I, "just like common people--when were you or I ever
seen running?"

"True," continued Vincent; "but when I saw him chasing that meagre
apparition, I said to Bennington, 'I have found out the real Peter
Schlemil!' 'Who?'(asked his grave lordship, with serious naivete) 'Mr.
Aberton,'said I; 'don't you see him running after his shadow?' But the
pride of the lean thing is so amusing! He is fifteenth cousin to the
duke, and so his favourite exordium is, 'Whenever I succeed to the titles
of my ancestors.'It was but the other day, that he heard two or three
silly young men discussing church and state, and they began by talking
irreligion--(Mr. Howard de Howard is too unsubstantial not to be
spiritually inclined)--however he only fidgeted in his chair. They then
proceeded to be exceedingly disloyal. Mr. Howard de Howard fidgeted
again;--they then passed to vituperations on the aristocracy--this the