ds to its effect.

On reaching this oddity's abode, I at once proceeded to business;
and was promised, in reply, the execution of my order on the
customary terms of credit. Thus far is strictly natural. The clothes
came home, and so, with admirable punctuality, did the bill; but the
death of a valued friend having withdrawn me, soon afterwards, from
London, six months elapsed; at the expiration of which time I was
refreshed, as agreed on, by a pecuniary application from my tailor.
Perhaps I should here mention, to the better understanding of my
tale, that I am a medical practitioner, of somewhat nervous
temperament, derived partly from inheritance, and partly from an
inveterate indulgence of the imagination. My income, too--which
seldom or never encumbers a surgeon who has not yet done walking the
hospitals--is limited, and, at this present period, was so far
contracted as to keep me in continual suspense. In this predicament
my tailor's memorandum was any thing but satisfactory. I wrote
accordingly to entreat his forbearance for six months longer, and,
as I received no reply, concluded that all was satisfactorily
arranged. Unluckily, however, as I was strolling, about a month
afterwards, along the Strand, I chanced to stumble up against him.
The shock seemed equally unexpected on both sides; but my tailor (as
being a dun) was the first to recover self-possession; and, with a
long preliminary hem!--a mute, but expressive compound of
remonstrance, apology, and resolution--opened his fire as follows:--

"I believe, sir, your name is D----?"

"I believe it is, sir."

"Well, then, Mr. D----, touching that little account between us, I
have to request, sir, that--"

"Very good; nothing can be more reasonable; wait the appointed time,
and you shall have all."

This answer served, in some degree, to appease him; no, not exactly
to appease him, because that would imply previous excitement, and he
was invariably imperturbable in manner; it satisfied him, however,
for the present, and he forthwith walked away, casting on me that
equivocal sort of look with which Ajax turned from Ulysses, or Dido
from AEneas, in the Shades.

A lapse of a few weeks ensued, during which I heard nothing further
from my persecutor; when, one dark November evening--one of those
peculiarly English evenings, full of fog and gloom, when the
half-frozen sleet, joined in its descent by gutters from the
house-tops, comes driving full in your face, b