"Good morning, Mr. Pelham; happy to see you returned. Do I disturb you
too early? shall I wait on you again?"

"No, Mr. N--, I am ready to receive you; you may renew my measure."

"We are a very good figure, Mr. Pelham; very good figure," replied the
Schneider, surveying me from head to foot, while he was preparing his
measure; "we want a little assistance though; we must be padded well
here; we must have our chest thrown out, and have an additional inch
across the shoulders; we must live for effect in this world, Mr. Pelham;
a leetle tighter round the waist, eh?"

"Mr. N--," said I, "you will take, first, my exact measure, and,
secondly, my exact instructions. Have you done the first?"

"We are done now, Mr. Pelham," replied my man-maker, in a slow, solemn
tone.

"You will have the goodness then to put no stuffing of any description in
my coat; you will not pinch me an iota tighter across the waist than is
natural to that part of my body, and you will please, in your infinite
mercy, to leave me as much after the fashion in which God made me, as you
possibly can."

"But, Sir, we must be padded; we are much too thin; all the gentlemen in
the Life Guards are padded, Sir."

"Mr. N--," answered I, "you will please to speak of us, with a separate,
and not a collective pronoun; and you will let me for once have my
clothes such as a gentleman, who, I beg of you to understand, is not a