as many intimates as
a jealous profession can tolerate, as Mr. Poddle: for the present
disabled from public appearance by the quality of the air supplied to
the exhibits at Hockley's Musee, his lungs being, as he himself
expressed it, "not gone, by no means, but gittin' restless."

"Mother gone?" asked the Dog-faced Man.

"She has gone, Mr. Poddle," the boy answered, "to dine with the Mayor."

"Oh!" Mr. Poddle ejaculated.

"Why do you say that?" the boy asked, frowning uneasily. "You always
say, 'Oh!'"

"Do I? 'Oh!' Like that?"

"Why do you do it?"

"Celebrities," replied Mr. Poddle, testily, entering at that moment,
"is not accountable. Me bein' one, don't ask me no questions."

"Oh!" said the boy.

Mr. Poddle sat himself in a chair by the window: and there began to
catch and vent his breath; but whether in melancholy sighs or snorts of
indignation it was impossible to determine. Having by these violent
means restored himself to a state of feeling more nearly normal, he
trifled for a time with the rings flashing on his thin, white fingers,
listlessly brushed the dust from the skirt of his rusty frock coat,
heaved a series of unmistakable sighs: whereupon--and by this strange
occupation the boy was quite fascinated--he drew a little comb, a
little brush, a little mirror, from his pocket; and having set up the
mirror in a convenient place, he proceeded to dress his hair, with
particular attention to the eyebrows, which, by and by, he tenderly
braided into two limp little horns: so that 'twas not long before he
looked much less like a frowsy Skye terrier, much more like an owl.

"The hour, Richard," he sighed, as he deftly parted his hair in the
middle of his nose, "has came!"

With such fond and hopeless feeling were these enigmatical words
charged that the boy could do nothing but heave a sympathetic sigh.

"You see before you, Richard, what you never seen before. A man in the
clutches," Mr. Poddle tragically pursued, giving a vicious little twist
to his left eyebrow, "of the tender passion!"

"Oh!" the boy muttered.

"'Fame,'" Mr. Poddle continued, improvising a newspaper head-line, to
make himself clear, "'No Shield Against the Little God's Darts.' Git
me? The high and the low gits the arrows in the same place."

"Does it--hurt?"

"Hurt!" cried Mr. Poddle, furiously. "It's perfectly excrugiating!
Hurt? Why----"

"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, "but you are biting your
mus