In about half an hour I began to feel confoundedly uncomfortable.  I was a mere cipher in the room; and what with the appalling bulk of Mr. Tims, the attention the ladies bestowed upon him, and the neglect with which they treated me, I sunk considerably in my own estimation.  In proportion as this feeling took possession of me, I experienced an involuntary respect for the stranger.  I admired his intimate knowledge of balls, dresses, faux pas, marriages, and gossip of all sorts—­and still more I admired his bulk.  I have an instinctive feeling of reverence towards “Stout Gentlemen;” and, while contrasting my own puny form with his, I laboured under a deep consciousness of personal insignificance.  From being five feet eight, I seemed to shrink to five feet one; from weighing ten stones, I suddenly fell to seven and a half; while my portly rival sat opposite to me, measuring at least a foot taller than myself, and weighing good thirty stones, jockey weight.  If any little fellow like me thinks of standing well with his mistress, let him never appear in her presence with such a gentleman as Mr. Tims.  She will despise him to a certainty; nor, though his soul be as large as Atlas or Teneriffe, will it compensate for the paltry dimensions of his body.

What was to be done?  With the ladies, it was plain, I could do nothing:  with Mr. Tims, it was equally plain, I ought to do nothing—­seeing that, however much he was the cause of my uneasiness, he was at least the innocent cause, and therefore neither morally nor judicially amenable to punishment.  From respecting Mr. Tims I came to hate him; and I vowed internally, that, rather than be annihilated by this enlarged edition of Daniel Lambert, I would pitch him over the window.  Had I been a giant, I am sure I would have done it on the spot.  The giants of old, it is well known, raised Pelion upon Ossa, in their efforts to scale the throne of heaven; and tossed enormous mountains at the godhead of Jupiter himself.  Unfortunately for me, Mr. Tims was a mountain, and I was no giant.

I accordingly got up, and, pretending it was necessary that I should see some person in the next street, abruptly left the room.  Julia—­I did not expect it—­saw me to the door, shook hands with me, and said she hoped I would return to supper when my business was finished.  Sweet girl! was it possible she could prefer the Man-Mountain to me?

Away I went into the open air.  I had no business whatever to perform:  it was mere fudge; and I resolved to go home as fast as I could.

But I did not go home.  On the contrary, I kept strolling about from street to street, sometimes thinking upon Julia, sometimes upon Mr. Tims.  The night was of the most melancholy description—­a cold, cloudy, windy, rainy December night.  Not a soul was upon the streets excepting a solitary straggler, returning hither and thither from an evening sermon, or an occasional watchman gliding past with his lantern,