he type of a stage servant,--one of those creatures
who hand round coffee in the "School for Scandal." My silk stockings
were embroidered with silver, and my showy coat displayed a bouquet that
might have filled a vase.

In addition to these personal graces, I had long been head of my
department; all the other officials, from the negro knife-cleaner
upwards, besides all those begged, borrowed, and, I believe I might add,
stolen domestics of other families, being placed under my orders.

Among the many functions committed to me, the drilling of these gentry
stood first in difficulty, not only because they were rebellious under
control, but because I had actually to invent "the discipline during
parade." One golden rule, however, I had adopted, and never suffered
myself to deviate from, viz., to do nothing as it had been done
before,--a maxim which relieved me from all the consequences of
inexperience. Traditions are fatal things for a radical reformer; and
I remembered having heard it remarked how Napoleon himself first
sacrificed his dignity by attempting an imitation of the monarchy. By
this one precept I ruled and squared all my conduct.

The most refractory of my subordinates was a jackanapes about my own
age, who, having once waited on the "young gentlemen" in the cock-pit of
a man-of-war, fancied he had acquired very extended views of life. Among
other traits of his fashionable experience, he remembered that at
a _dejeuner_ given by the officers at Cadiz once, the company, who
breakfasted in the gun-room, had all left their hats and cloaks in the
midshipman's berth, receiving each a small piece of card with a number
on it, and a similar one being attached to the property,--a process
so universal now in our theatres and assemblies that I ask pardon for
particularly describing it; but it was a novelty at the time I speak of,
and had all the merits of a new discovery.

Smush--this was my deputy's name--had been so struck with the admirable
success of the arrangement that he had actually preserved the pieces of
card, and now produced them, black and ragged, from the recesses of his
trunk.

"Mr. Cregan"--such was the respectful title by which I was now always
addressed--"Mr. Cregan can tell us," said he, "if this is not the custom
at great balls in London."

"It used to be so, formerly," said I, with an air of most consummate
coolness, as I sat in an arm-chair, regaling myself with a cigar; "the
practice you allu