it taking his stick out of
his hand.

'That's my portrait atop,' Dennis replied; 'd'ye think it's like?'

'Why--it's a little too handsome,' said Mr Tappertit. 'Who did it? You?'

'I!' repeated Dennis, gazing fondly on his image. 'I wish I had the
talent. That was carved by a friend of mine, as is now no more. The very
day afore he died, he cut that with his pocket-knife from memory! "I'll
die game," says my friend, "and my last moments shall be dewoted to
making Dennis's picter." That's it.'

'That was a queer fancy, wasn't it?' said Mr Tappertit.

'It WAS a queer fancy,' rejoined the other, breathing on his fictitious
nose, and polishing it with the cuff of his coat, 'but he was a queer
subject altogether--a kind of gipsy--one of the finest, stand-up men,
you ever see. Ah! He told me some things that would startle you a bit,
did that friend of mine, on the morning when he died.'

'You were with him at the time, were you?' said Mr Tappertit.

'Yes,' he answered with a curious look, 'I was there. Oh! yes certainly,
I was there. He wouldn't have gone off half as comfortable without me. I
had been with three or four of his family under the same circumstances.
They were all fine fellows.'

'They must have been fond of you,' remarked Mr Tappertit, looking at him
sideways.

'I don't know that they was exactly fond of me,' said Dennis, with a
little hesitation, 'but they all had me near 'em when they departed. I
come in for their wardrobes too. This very handkecher that you see round
my neck, belonged to him that I've been speaking of--him as did that
likeness.'

Mr Tappertit glanced at the article referred to, and appeared to think
that the deceased's ideas of dress were of a peculiar and by no means an
expensive kind. He made no remark upon the point, however, and suffered
his mysterious companion to proceed without interruption.

'These smalls,' said Dennis, rubbing his legs; 'these very smalls--they
belonged to a friend of mine that's left off sich incumbrances for ever:
this coat too--I've often walked behind this coat, in the street, and
wondered whether it would ever come to me: this pair of shoes have
danced a hornpipe for another man, afore my eyes, full half-a-dozen
times at least: and as to my hat,' he said, taking it off, and whirling
it round upon his fist--'Lord! I've seen this hat go up Holborn on the
box of a hackney-coach--ah, many and many a day!'

'You don't mean to say their old wearers are A