the aquiline features of our neighbours appear
to us a positive deformity; we commune so
socially with the cast in our own eyes that
the straightforward glances of our friends
inspire us with actual aversion. There is, also,
all the difference between custom and
surprise: if our aspect present any hoar
asperities, the habit of gazing on them eventually
softens all, and melts them into beauty. The
world in general may be of another opinion,
but as we do not look through other folks'
spectacles, we cannot be expected to see
ourselves as others see us. So much for the reason
why Gabriel Badger cherished the belief that
he was an Adonis; and when the women
stared at him he set that down to the credit
side of his account: the more they stared the
better he thought of himself. Vanity, this,
no doubt; but there was something else at
work. Gabriel Badger was of a temperament
highly susceptible: he was always
falling in love; and though he met with
countless rebuffs in the course of his career,
he nevertheless went on proposing.

Truth, however, will out. As Voltaire
says: "Enfin, tout est counu," and even
Gabriel Badger became, at last, aware of the
cause of his many rejections. It was a heavy
blow, but not a great discouragement.

"Hideous! Is that it? " soliloquised
Gabriel Badger one morning as he was shaving,
the moment of all others best adapted
for self-interrogation. "Hideous! Well,
Miss Emily Brown, I can't say I think so. I
should like to know," he continued, addressing
his well-lathered effigy in the looking-glass,
"what there is here to find fault with.
Painters talk about breadth and expression.
I'm sure my face is broad enough, and as
for expression—let me only clear away
the soap-suds! Isn't a massive forehead
something to admire? I had the small-pox
when I was young, and perhaps there may be
a scar or two left" (his face was riddled like
a colander) "but what of that? It's manly.
Whiskers, Miss Emily Brown? I have you
there! Are they hideous? Where can you
see a larger pair? This lather makes 'em
look a little red" (they were high gravel
colour) "but that's only contrast. I haven't
Francis the First's nose " (Gabriel's was a
snub) "I admit it. But was he a beauty?
Titian, if he chose, could tell you a very
different story. Give me something that's
honest and bluff, like our own King Harry.
Figure? Miss Brown, you're hard to please.
And yet—" Here Gabriel Badger paused,
and sighed—"and yet she didn't say it in a
pet, or out of spite, or anything of that sort,
for she didn't know I heard her. What a
fool I was to stand behind the portière while
those girls were talking. I might have
remembered the proverb. Who were they—
let me see! Emily Brown, Eliza Parsons,
Alice Taylor, Bertha Jones, Georgina Walker,
yes—and the one they called Matilda Smith.
How they laughed! That was what made
me listen. 'Do you think him so very plain,
love?' asked somebody, Matilda Smith, I
suppose, for I did not recognise her voice.
'I don't know what you mean by very plain,'
replied Bertha Jones, 'but if I saw a crossing-
sweeper half as ugly I would go over
my boots in mud to get out of his way!'

"'He is much more like a monkey than a
man!' said Eliza Parsons.

"'If you mean an orang-outang,' squeaked
Alice Taylor,—pert little thing,—'I quite
agree with you.'

"'No,' said Georgina Walker, with that air
of hers, of affected candour, 'no; I think you
are both wrong. You go out of the way for
similes. Mr. Badger is simply the ugliest of
his species!'

"And then they all laughed again, as if Miss
Walker had said something excessively witty.
Four out of the six had had their fling at me.
I waited breathlessly to hear Emily Brown's
opinion. I never proposed to her or Miss
Smith, though I have to all the rest.

"'What do you say, Emily?' inquired
Matilda. (I knew it must be her, all the
others having spoken.) 'Only this,' answered
the perfidious creature,—(she had danced
with me the night before.) "Only this: the
man is perfectly hideous! He ought to be
shut up, and never allowed to appear again in
ladies' society.'

"I walked away from the portière. What
was the sex to me after that? If they were
all to go down on their knees and beg and
pray for me to have 'em, I—" (Here Gabriel
became energetic, and cut himself.) "Curse
this razor,—what am I about? No, not if—
Where's the sticking-plaister? Not if—Stay,
let me think it over! No! Miss Smith said
nothing herself. She laughed, it is true, but
then girls will laugh at anything. Besides,
she has never seen me; we have never been
introduced. Ah, Matilda! are you an
unprejudiced person? Shall I run the risk? I
must consider; I must consider."

Having dressed and breakfasted, as heartily
as if he really had a broken heart, Gabriel
Badger went out for a walk, exercise assisting
his mental powers better than repose. But
Gabriel Badger's peregrinations were never
solitary, and, on this occasion he selected
Regent Street as a good place to think in.
Neither is it altogether a bad one for that
purpose, only it depends upon what you want
to think of. If you are a physiognomist you
may get up a volume of characters in five
minutes, but if abtruse calculation be your
object the chances are against success.

Gabriel Badger was neither a philosopher
nor a mathematician,—merely an ill-used
man; and so he tried to divert the vulture
from his liver by looking at the shops. He
speculated on trousers and waistcoats,—how
that stripe would develop the symmetry of
his nether limbs, or this pattern best reveal
the amplitude of his noble chest; he marked
a cluster of charms in the jeweller's window