He did catch Mr. Losely, and very nearly caught something else; for that
gentleman was in a ring of noisy horsemen, mounted on a hired hack, and
loud as the noisiest. When Rugge came up to his stirrup, and began his
harangue, Losely turned his hack round with so sudden an appliance of bit
and spur, that the animal lashed out, and its heel went within an inch of
the manager's cheek-bone. Before Rugge could recover, Losely was in a
hand-gallop. But the blind man! Of course Rugge did not find him? You
are mistaken: he did. The blind man was there, dog and all. The manager
spoke to him, and did not know him from Adam.

Nor have you or I, my venerated readers, any right whatsoever to doubt
whether Mr. Rugge could be so stolidly obtuse. Granting that blind
sailor to be the veritable William Waife, William Waife was a man of
genius, taking pains to appear an ordinary mortal. And the anecdotes of
Munden, or of Bamfylde Moore Carew, suffice to tell us how Protean is the
power of transformation in a man whose genius is mimetic. But how often
does it happen to us, venerated readers, not to recognize a man of
genius, even when he takes no particular pains to escape detection! A
man of genius may be for ten years our next-door neighbour; he may dine
in company with us twice a week; his face may be as familiar to our eyes
as our armchair; his voice to our ears as the click of our parlour-clock:
yet we are never more astonished than when all of a sudden, some bright
day, it is discovered that our next-door neighbour is--a man of genius.
Did you ever hear tell of the life of a man of genius but what there were
numerous witnesses who deposed to the fact, that until, perfidious
dissembler! he flared up and set the Thames on fire they had never seen
anything in him; an odd creature, perhaps a good creature,--probably a
poor creature,--but a MAN of GENIUS! They would as soon have suspected
him of being the Khann of Tartary! Nay, candid readers, are there not
some of you who refuse to the last to recognize the maa of genius, till