“Now, though a lad of mettle, you know, sir, it would not have been quite the thing to have called out my intended father-in-law; so, with amazing forbearance, bridling my passion, I allowed him to march off triumphantly, and stood, with the letter in my hand, looking down the alley after him, strutting along, staff in hand, like a recruiting sergeant, as if he had been a phoenix.

“A man of my penetration was not long in scenting out who was the formidable rival to whom Daddy Mainspring alluded. Sacre! to think the mercenary old hunks could dream of sacrificing my lovely Lucy to such a hobgoblin of a fellow as a superannuated dragoon quartermaster, with a beak like Bardolph’s in the play.  But I had some confidence in my own qualifications; and as I gave a sly glance down at my nether person, ‘Dash-the-wig-of-him!’ thought I to myself, ’if he can sport a leg like that of Toby Tims.’  I accordingly determined not to be discomfited, and took the earliest opportunity of presenting Miss Lucy, through a sure channel, with a passionate billet doux, a patent pair of gilt bracelets, and a box of Ruspini’s tooth-powder.  By St. Patrick and all the powers, it was shocking to suppose that such an angel as the cherry-cheeked Lucy should be stolen from me by such an apology for a gallant, as Quartermaster Bottlenose of the Tipperary Rangers.  ’Twas murder, by Jupiter.”

“I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Tims; Did you challenge him to the duello?”

“A leetle patience, if you please, sir, and you shall hear all.  During the violence of my love-fits, I committed a variety of professional mistakes.  I sent at one time a pot of bear’s grease away by the mail, in a wig-box, to a member of parliament in Yorkshire; and burned a whole batch of baked hair to ashes, while singing Moore’s ’When he who adores thee,’ in attitude, before a block, dressed up for the occasion with a fashionable wig upon it—­to say nothing of my having, in a fit of abstraction, given a beautiful young lady, who was going that same evening to a Lord Mayor’s ball, the complete charity-workhouse cut, leaving her scalp as bare as the back of my hand.  But cheer up!—­to my happy astonishment, sir, matters worked like a charm.  What a parley-vooing and billet-dooing passed between us!  We would have required a porter for the sole purpose.  Then we had stolen interviews of two hours’ duration each, for several successive nights, at the old horologer’s back-door, during which, besides a multiplicity of small-talk—­thanks to his deafness—­I tried my utmost to entrap her affections, by reciting sonnets, and spouting bits of plays in the manner of the tragedy performers.  These were the happy times, sir!  The world was changed for me.  Paddington canal seemed the river Pactolus, and Rag-Fair Elysium!