e. By the by, a chap I met yesterday told me my face was
simply glowing with health."

"Especially your nose, my pretty fellow," remarked the Clown.

"From my brow to my chin, I am, I believe, suffused with the glow of a
pretty color," replied the Hansom-driver. "Naturally it does not skip my
nose. And very glad I am it does not; I should not like any feature to
feel neglected or left out in the cold."

"He becomes quite unbearable," whispered one lady doll to another.

"Quite," she replied in the same tone.

The Hansom-driver smiled as he saw them whisper. He did not doubt but
that they were making some flattering remarks about himself.

"Speak out, ladies," he said.

But they turned away in silent anger.

Most people would have been annoyed at this behavior. Not so the
Hansom-driver. In his great vanity he completely misread their silence.

"A compliment about me," he laughed. "Doubtless too great a one to be
said aloud."

"You needn't fancy _that_," said the Butcher rudely. "You hear a good
many compliments, I don't deny, but they all come from the same
source--your own block of a head. When you are absent you get few
enough, that I know for a positive fact."

"Not that there is anything surprising in it," the Baker said to the
Hansom-driver in quite as rude a manner as the Butcher. "I am not yet
aware that you are a subject for compliments."

"'My face is my fortune, sir, he said'," misquoted the Hansom-driver
with great conceit; "and a very handsome fortune, too," he added.

"Your face!" exclaimed the Butcher. "Why, a sheep's face is more to be
admired than yours."

"I beg to differ," the Hansom-driver said, shaking his head. "I've never
yet seen a really good-looking face amongst a flock of sheep."

"So you actually think yours is good-looking?" sneered the Baker. "Why,
I could make a better-looking one out of a piece of dough."

"I defy you to," the Hansom-driver replied. "A face like mine is not
easily copied. Nor am I the only person of that opinion. All the ladies
think that I am beautiful. And of course I go by what they think."

"And who," he asked, with a bow towards a little group of lady dolls,
"who can be better judges of the matter?"

"Do you think they consider you good-looking?" inquired the Clown. "Get
along, you dreamer!"

"I do not think it, I know it," he replied.

"We don't," said the Butcher and the Baker. "Put it to the proof. We
challenge you. Let the ladies vote upon t