was failing him. His hair was slightly grizzled,
he ate little and drank less; he had a cough;
and he smoked even more persistently than of
yore. He was unmarried. He had travelled
considerably since we saw him last, and fully
earned his status as a Pilgrim. He had been
east, and brought home narghilés, papouches,
and attar of roses; he had been west, and
returned with buffalo robes and moccasins, the
antlers of elks, and the tails of beavers. His
hunting-lodge was hung with the scalps of the
Hours he had killed; but he felt a little bored,
even among the desiccated skull-caps of his slain
enemies. They were dead; but what was he to
do with the hours which were to come? He
had become wealthier; but he spent little, so
far as was known; drove, now, no four-in-hand;
indulged in no elegant wickedness. The gossips
whispered that the priests had got hold of him;
that by his munificence had been endowed the
new bishopric of Adrianopolis in partibus
infidelium; that he had built the oratory of St.
Gengulphus up in Northumberland; and that he
would probably make an end of it as Brother
Something or other, with peas in his shoes and
spikes in his girdle. But you and I know what
the whispers of the gossips are worth.

And the pair of guests? The Sultan Greyfaunt
is before you. He was in his proper
element: he was happy. The pearl of a washer-
woman, and the jewel of a body-servant, had
done all that was possible for him. The sultan
had a contented mind, and had fully made that
mind up on the important subject of himself.

The partie carrée at the round table was
completed by Tom Tuttleshell. I wish to state that
Tom has been dead (worthy soul!) these five
years, and that his mantle has not descended
upon anybody. There are a great many people
going about the world who would like to be Tom
Tuttleshell, but they can’t manage it. Only one
Tuttleshell can flourish in a generation, and the
time of the next Tuttleshell has not come yet.

He was a florid little man, with such bright
red hair and whiskers, such sparkling blue eyes,
such gleaming white teeth, such a dazzling shirt
collar, such mirror-like boots, and altogether in
such a violent and inflammatory state of freshness,
that he looked as though he had been boiled,
starched, and mangled in a hurry. His hands
were so ostentatiously clean, that you might
have fancied (but that he was the most harmless
fellow breathing) that he had been murdering
somebody, and scrubbing his knuckles with a
flesh-brush to get the blood off. In evening-dress
he was superb, and wore the largest
cleanest and stiffest white neckcloth to be seen
out of a Wesleyan conference. In morning-dress
his trousers were of so very large and
pronounced a check as to give his legs the
appearance of ambulatory draught-boards; and
he wore, winter and summer, a white waistcoat,
a black watch ribbon, and a white hat with a
crape round it. I think that costume was the
making of Tom. In it he was fit for any society.
In that white waistcoat he had assisted at a
ladies' committee (anti-slavery) in the gorgeous
saloons of Sennacherib House. Often you
might see the white hat, and snowy vest, and
the rubicund perspiring face between them, on
platforms at public meetings, down the yard at
Tattersall's, and in the lobbies of the Parliament
House. They always let Tom into the Speaker's
gallery of the Commons. I don't know why;
but I conjecture in consequence of the hat and
waistcoat. They looked so much as though
they and their wearer had a right to go everywhere.

You met Tom Tuttleshell in all kinds of
London penetralia, to the most exclusive. At
the guard-mounting at St. James's you would
find Tom in the centre of the hollow square,
where the colours were, chatting to the
Guardsmen. At a review in Plumstead marshes,
who was that individual in a white hat and
waistcoat? Who was that bold civilian riding
full split with the chief of the staff. That, by
your leave, and by the chief's leave, too, who
knows him, was Tom Tuttleshell. Tom was
never in the commission of the peace— his
commissions were of a very different nature— but
you might behold him sitting on the bench,
cheek by jowl with the Middlesex magistrates
on licensing day. He was sure to turn up on the
speech-days of the public schools, and at the
collations afterwards. The swan-hopping excursions
of the corporation of London; the term-feasts
of the Honourable Society of Reynard's
Inn (where you dined in a rusty black gown,
drank hippocras, and were expected to drink, in
Norman-French, to the health of the late Chief
Justice Gascoigne); and especially the annual
banquets of the Worshipful Company of Chain-mail
Makers (nearly the last of the City
companies who put five-pound notes under the plates
of their guests, and cause their beadles to fill
the hats of the company with macaroons and
pine-apple jelly when they go away: such is
the munificence of the Chain-mail Makers, whose
Hall has not been rebuilt since the great fire, and
whose paraphernalia is in the custody of the
head waiter at the Star and Garter); none of
these festive gatherings would have been
complete without the presence of Tom Tuttleshell.
He sung so good a song, and told so good a
story, that aldermen and baronets had been
heard to regret, almost with tears in their eyes,
that That Man was not something in the City,
whereby he would infallibly have made his
fortune. I believe that Tom was free of Ihe
Chain Makers, whose stock paid twenty-seven
per cent, and that he lived upon his dividends.
Others accounted for his means of livelihood by
whispering the mysterious word "commission."
It was certain that, although Tom was always
ready to borrow forty thousand pounds— at
seven and a half per cent, not a penny more— for
the Earl of Liveloose, he never borrowed any
money himself. You could not call him a sponge;
for though he was continually being asked to
dinner, he never asked to be asked. You had
no right to brand him as a tuft-hunter, for he
toadied nobody, and made himself sought by,
without seeking the company of, the great. The