fit his round figure.
It was hopeless for a time, but at last a good-sized body was found, and
added thereto, an ample skirt. Felix dressed his hair with _mainte_
plats and a _net_. He looked perfect, but in coming out of the
hairdresser's to get into his fly, unconsciously pulled up his skirt and
displayed a sturdy pair of well-trousered legs. A crowd--there is always
a ready crowd in Paris--was waiting, and the laugh was general. This
hero reached the horse-dealer's--'mounted,' and rode down the Champs. 'A
very fine woman that,' said a Frenchman in the promenade, 'but what a
back she has!' It was in the return bet to this that a now well-known
diplomat drove a goat-chaise and six down the same fashionable resort,
with a monkey, dressed as a footman, in the back seat. The days of folly
did not, apparently end with Beau Nash.

There is a long lacuna in the history of this worthy's life, which may
have been filled up by a residence in a spunging-house, or by a
temporary appointment as billiard-marker; but the heroic Beau accounted
for his disappearance at this time in a much more romantic manner. He
used to relate that he was once asked to dinner on board of a man-of-war
under orders for the Mediterranean, and that such was the affection the
officers entertained for him, that, having made him drunk--no difficult
matter--they weighed anchor, set sail, and carried the successor of King
Bladud away to the wars. Having gone so far, Nash was not the man to
neglect an opportunity for imaginary valour. He therefore continued to
relate, that, in the apocryphal vessel, he was once engaged in a yet
more apocryphal encounter, and wounded in the leg. This was a little too
much for the good Bathonians to believe, but Nash silenced their doubts.
On one occasion, a lady who was present when he was telling this story,
expressed her incredulity.

'I protest, madam,' cried the Beau, lifting his leg up, 'it is true, and
if I cannot be believed, your ladyship may, if you please, receive
further information and feel the ball in my leg.'

Wherever Nash may have passed the intervening years, may be an
interesting speculation for a German professor, but is of little moment
to us. We find him again, at the age of thirty, taking first steps
towards the complete subjugation of the kingdom he afterwards ruled.

There is, among the hills of Somersetshire, a huge basin formed by the
river Avon, and conveniently supplied with a natural gush of hot