ce, who did the
"three and sixpenny walking gents," and dramatic general postmen, or
letter-deliverers, at "the Private." In the course of the enlightened
conversation between the said friend, Mr. Julius Dilberry Pipps, and Mr.
Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, Julius Dilberry Pipps expressed an earnest
wish that he "might be blowed considerably tighter than the Vauxhall
balloon if ever he _see_ such a likeness of Mr. Hannibal Fitzflummery
Fitzflam," the "great actor of the day," as his "_bussom_ and intimate,"
Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk! A nervous pressure of Mr. Horatio
Fitzharding Fitzfunk's "pickers and stealers" having nearly reduced to one
vast chaos the severely compressed digits of the enthusiastic Julius
Dilberry Pipps, the invisible green broad-cloth envelopments and drab
lower encasements, crowned with gossamer and based with calf-skin, wherein
the total outward man of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk was enrobed,
together with his ambulating anatomy, evanished from the startled gaze of
the deserted and finger-contused Julius Dilberry Pipps! Having asserted
the entire realisation of his hastily-formed wish, in the emphatic words,
"Well, I _am_ blowed!" and a further comment, stating his conviction that
"this was _rayther_ a rummy go," Mr. Julius Dilberry Pipps reduced his
exchequer the gross amount of threepence, paid in consideration of the
instant receipt of "a pint o'porter and screw," to the fumigation of which
he applied with such excessive vigour, that in a few moments he might be
said, by his own exertions in "blowing a cloud," to be corporeally as well
as mentally "in nubibus."

To account for the rapid departure of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, we
must inform our readers the supposed similarity alluded to by Julius
Dilberry Pipps, between the "great creature," Hannibal Fitzflummery
Fitzflam, and Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, had been before frequently
insisted upon: and this assertion of the obtuse Julius Dilberry Pipps now
seemed "confirmation strong as proof of holy writ." Agitated with
conflicting emotions, and regardless of small children and apple-stalls,
Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk rushed on with headlong speed, every now
and then ejaculating, "I'll do it, I'll do it!" A sudden overhauling of
his pockets produced some stray halfpence; master of a "Queen's head," a
sheet of vellum, a new "Mordaunt," and an "envelope," Mr. Horatio
Fitzharding Fitzfunk, arrived at his three-pair-back, in