ight line--length without
breadth. His inseparable friend, Mr. Aberton, was running up the Rue St.
Honore yesterday in order to catch him."

"Running!" cried I, "just like common people--when were you or I ever
seen running?"

"True," continued Vincent; "but when I saw him chasing that meagre
apparition, I said to Bennington, 'I have found out the real Peter
Schlemil!' 'Who?'(asked his grave lordship, with serious naivete) 'Mr.
Aberton,'said I; 'don't you see him running after his shadow?' But the
pride of the lean thing is so amusing! He is fifteenth cousin to the
duke, and so his favourite exordium is, 'Whenever I succeed to the
titles of my ancestors.'It was but the other day, that he heard two or
three silly young men discussing church and state, and they began by
talking irreligion--(Mr. Howard de Howard is too unsubstantial not to be
spiritually inclined)--however he only fidgeted in his chair. They then
proceeded to be exceedingly disloyal. Mr. Howard de Howard fidgeted
again;--they then passed to vituperations on the aristocracy--this the
attenuated pomposity (magni nominis umbra) could brook no longer. He
rose up, cast a severe look on the abashed youths, and thus addressed
them--'Gentlemen, I have sate by in silence, and heard my King derided,
and my God blasphemed; but now in attacking the aristocracy, I can no
longer refrain from noticing so obviously intentional an insult. You
have become personal.' But did you know, Pelham, that he is going to be
married?"

"No," said I. "I can't say that I thought such an event likely. Who is
the intended?"

"A Miss--, a girl with some fortune. 'I can bring her none,' said he to
the father, 'but I can make her Mrs. Howard de Howard.'"

"Alas, poor girl!" said I, "I fear that her happiness will hang upon a
slender thread. But suppose we change the conversation: first, because
the subject is so meagre, that we might easily wear it out, and
secondly, because such jests may come home. I am not very corpulent
myself."

"Bah!" said Vincent, "but at least you have bones and muscles. If you
were to pound the poor secretary in a mortar, you might take him all up
in a pinch of snuff."

"Pray, Vincent," said I, after a short pause, "did you ever meet with a
Mr. Thornton, at Paris?"

"Thornton, Thornton," said Vincent, musingly; "what, Tom Thornton?"

"I should think, very likely," I replied; "just the sort of man who
would be Tom Thornton--has a broad face, with a colour