a blue."

"You are a blue?" said the boy Lionel; "I don't understand."

"Young 'un, I'm a Tory,--that's blue; and Spruce is a Rad,--that's pink!
And, what is more to the purpose, he is a tailor, and I'm a cobbler."

"Aha!" said the elder, with much interest; "more to the purpose is it?
How so?"

The Cobbler put the forefinger of the right hand on the forefinger
of the left; it is the gesture of a man about to ratiocinate or
demonstrate, as Quintilian, in his remarks on the oratory of fingers,
probably observes; or if he has failed to do so, it is a blot in his
essay.

"You see, sir," quoth the Cobbler, "that a man's business has a deal
to do with his manner of thinking. Every trade, I take it, has ideas as
belong to it. Butchers don't see life as bakers do; and if you talk to
a dozen tallow-chandlers, then to a dozen blacksmiths, you will see
tallow-chandlers are peculiar, and blacksmiths too."

"You are a keen observer," said he of the jean cap, admiringly; "your
remark is new to me; I dare say it is true."

"Course it is; and the stars have summat to do with it; for if they
order a man's calling, it stands to reason that they order a man's mind
to fit it. Now, a tailor sits on his board with others, and is always
a-talking with 'em, and a-reading the news; therefore he thinks, as his
fellows do, smart and sharp, bang up to the day, but nothing 'riginal
and all his own, like. But a cobbler," continued the man of leather,
with a majestic air, "sits by hisself, and talks with hisself; and what
he thinks gets into his head without being put there by another man's
tongue."

"You enlighten me more and more," said our friend with the nose in the
air, bowing respectfully,--"a tailor is gregarious, a cobbler solitary.
The gregarious go with the future, the solitary stick by the past. I
understand why you are a Tory and perhaps a poet."

"Well, a bit of one," said the Cobbler, with an iron smile. "And many
's the cobbler who is a poet,--or discovers marvellous things in a
crystal,--whereas a tailor, sir" (spoken with great contempt), "only
sees the upper leather of the world's sole in a newspaper."

Here the conversation was interrupted by a sudden pressure of the crowd
towards the theatre. The two young friends looked up, and saw that the
new object of attraction was a little girl, who seemed scarcely ten
years old, though in truth she was about two years older. She had just
emerged from behind the curtain, made he