"whatever happens, I am going to take
Tussmann off your hands. What you have got to do is to get into
Bosswinkel's house, by hook or by crook, as often as you can, and
attract Albertine to you as much as you can manage to do. As for my
operations against the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, they can't be begun
till the night of the Autumnal Equinox."

CHAPTER III.

CONTAINS A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF MR. TUSSMANN, CLERK OF THE PRIVY
CHANCERY; WITH THE REASON WHY HE HAD TO DISMOUNT THE ELECTOR'S
HORSE; AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY TO BE READ.

Dear reader! From what you have already learnt concerning Mr. Tussmann,
you can see the man before you, in all his works and ways. But, as
regards his outward man, I ought to add that he was short of stature,
very bald, a little bow-legged, and very grotesque in his dress. He
wore a coat of the most old-world cut, with endlessly long tails; a
waistcoat, also of enormous length; and long white trousers, with shoes
which, as he walked, made as loud a clatter as the boots of a courier.
Here it should be observed that he never walked in the streets with
regular steps, like most people, but jumped, so to speak, with great
irregular strides, and incredible rapidity, so that the aforesaid long
tails of his coat spread themselves out like wings, in the breeze which
he thus created around him. Although there was something excessively
comic about his face, yet there was a most kindly smile playing about
his mouth which impressed you in his favour; and everybody liked him,
though they laughed at the pedantry and awkwardness of his behaviour,
which estranged him from the world. His passion was reading. He never
went out but he had both his coat-pockets crammed full of books. He
read wherever he was, and in all circumstances; walking or standing, as
he took his exercise, in church and in the cafe. He read
indiscriminately everything that came to his hand: but only out of old
times, the present being hateful to him. Thus, to-day he would be
studying, in the cafe, a work on algebra; to-morrow, 'Frederick the
Great's Cavalry Regulations,' and next the remarkable book, 'Cicero
proved to be a Pettifogger and a Windbag: in Ten Discourses. Anno
1720.' Moreover, he had a most extraordinary memory; he marked all the
passages which particularly struck him in a book, then read all those
marked passages over again, after which he never forgot them any more.
Hence he wa