This done, he drew from some concealed place a little scrap of
looking-glass, and with its assistance arranged his hair, and
ascertained the exact state of a little carbuncle on his nose. Having
now completed his toilet, he placed the fragment of mirror on a low
bench, and looked over his shoulder at so much of his legs as could be
reflected in that small compass, with the greatest possible complacency
and satisfaction.

Sim, as he was called in the locksmith's family, or Mr Simon Tappertit,
as he called himself, and required all men to style him out of doors,
on holidays, and Sundays out,--was an old-fashioned, thin-faced,
sleek-haired, sharp-nosed, small-eyed little fellow, very little more
than five feet high, and thoroughly convinced in his own mind that he
was above the middle size; rather tall, in fact, than otherwise. Of his
figure, which was well enough formed, though somewhat of the leanest,
he entertained the highest admiration; and with his legs, which, in
knee-breeches, were perfect curiosities of littleness, he was enraptured
to a degree amounting to enthusiasm. He also had some majestic, shadowy
ideas, which had never been quite fathomed by his intimate friends,
concerning the power of his eye. Indeed he had been known to go so far
as to boast that he could utterly quell and subdue the haughtiest beauty
by a simple process, which he termed 'eyeing her over;' but it must
be added, that neither of this faculty, nor of the power he claimed
to have, through the same gift, of vanquishing and heaving down dumb
animals, even in a rabid state, had he ever furnished evidence which
could be deemed quite satisfactory and conclusive.

It may be inferred from these premises, that in the small body of Mr
Tappertit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul. As
certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will