s in the newspapers call "the height of fashion,"--that is to say,
he had travestied the style of the most daring dandies of last year. He
wore no gloves; but the bloated rubicundity of his hands was relieved by
a profusion of rings, which--even without the cigar in his mouth--were
quite sufficient to establish his claims to gentility.

Edward, my master, returned the civilities of the stranger, and, turning
back with him, they agreed to "go somewhere."

"Have a weed," said Mr. Bethnal, producing a well-filled cigar-case.
There was no resisting. Edward took one.

"Where shall we go?" he said.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Mr. Bethnal, who looked as if
experiencing a novel sensation--he evidently had an idea. "I tell you
what--we'll go and blow a cloud with Joe, the pigeon-fancier. He lives
only a short distance off, not far from the abbey; I want to see him on
business, so we shall kill two birds. He's one of us, you know."

I now learned that Mr. Bethnal was a new acquaintance, picked up under
circumstances (as a member of Parliament, to whom I once belonged, used
to say in the House) to which it is unnecessary further to allude.

"I was glad to hear of your luck, by-the-by," said the gentleman in
question, not noticing his companion's wish to avoid the subject. "I
heard of it from Old Blinks. Smashing's the thing, if one's a
presentable cove. You'd do deuced well in it. You've only to get nobby
togs and you'll do."

Mr. Joe, it appeared, in addition to his ornithological occupations,
kept a small shop for the sale of coals and potatoes; he was also, in a
very small way, a timber merchant; for several bundles of firewood were
piled in pyramids in his shed.

Mr. Bethnal's business with him was soon dispatched; although not until
after the latter had been assured by his friend, that Edward was "of the
right sort," with the qualification that he was "rather green at
present;" and he was taken into Mr. Joe's confidence, and also into Mr.
Joe's up-stairs sanctum.

In answer to a request from Mr. Bethnal, in a jargon to me then
unintelligible, Mr. Joe produced from some mysterious depository at the
top of the house, a heavy canvas bag, which he emptied on the table,
discovering a heap of shillings and half-crowns, which, by a sympathetic
instinct, I immediately detected to be of my own species.

"What do you think of these?" said Mr. Bethnal to his young friend.

Edward expressed some astonishment that Mr.