room. He is so full of these unaccountable eccentricities that I
never like to notice Monsieur du Miroir, nor to acknowledge the
slightest connection with him, in places of public resort. He,
however, has no scruple about claiming my acquaintance, even when
his common-sense, if he had any, might teach him that I would as
willingly exchange a nod with the Old Nick. It was but the other
day that he got into a large brass kettle at the entrance of a
hardware-store, and thrust his head, the moment afterwards, into a
bright, new warming-pan, whence he gave me a most merciless look of
recognition. He smiled, and so did I; but these childish tricks
make decent people rather shy of Monsieur du Miroir, and subject him
to more dead cuts than any other gentleman in town.

One of this singular person's most remarkable peculiarities is his
fondness for water, wherein he excels any temperance man whatever.
His pleasure, it must be owned, is not so much to drink it (in which
respect a very moderate quantity will answer his occasions) as to
souse himself over head and ears wherever he may meet with it.
Perhaps he is a merman, or born of a mermaid's marriage with a
mortal, and thus amphibious by hereditary right, like the children
which the old river deities, or nymphs of fountains, gave to earthly
love. When no cleaner bathing-place happened to be at hand, I have
seen the foolish fellow in a horse-pond. Some times he refreshes
himself in the trough of a town-pump, without caring what the people
think about him. Often, while carefully picking my way along the
street after a heavy shower, I have been scandalized to see Monsieur
du Miroir, in full dress, paddling from one mud-puddle to another,
and plunging into the filthy depths of each. Seldom have I peeped
into a well without discerning this ridiculous gentleman at the
bottom, whence he gazes up, as through a long telescopic tube, and