That founder and his only follower, Maltboy, were determined, however, to put the new social system into practice on New Year’s day, and had secured the ready services of Quigg, the grocer, as originally proposed by the sagacious Overtop.  Marcus Wilkeson obstinately refused to participate in this projected grand tour; which refusal was too bad, said Overtop, because the fourth seat in the double sleigh that had been hired for the occasion would be left vacant.

At last came New Year’s day; and the sky was cloudless, and the sun was bright, and the weather was just cold enough to make the blood tingle pleasantly, and the snow was a foot deep, and well beaten down in the side streets.  The elements themselves had conspired to give the Overtop theory every chance of success.

J.M.  Quigg, grocer, was elaborately attiring himself in the snug sleeping room behind his store, at ten o’clock on the morning of the eventful day.  He little knew the tremendous importance of the part which he was about to perform.  He looked upon Overtop and Maltboy, not as the expounders of a new social philosophy, but as cash customers to a considerable extent, and as partners in defraying the heavy expenses of a large double team.  Mr. Quigg exercised the virtue of prudence even in his dissipations, and derived pleasure from the reflection that he would make his annual round of complimentary calls in an elegant turnout at a moderate cost.

Therefore Mr. Quigg hummed pleasantly as he dressed himself, by the aid of a large mirror which he had taken for a bad debt, and which was the only ornament of the plainly furnished little room.  Mr. Quigg was a man of business, and never fretted with cravats, nor made himself unhappy on the subject of hair.  Three turns and a pull adjusted the former; and a half dozen well-directed dabs with a stiff brush regulated the latter.  Fifteen minutes after he began his toilet, he took a comprehensive view of himself in the large mirror, and mentally expressed the conviction that, for a man of thirty-seven, he was not bad looking.

Quigg was right; and his just opinion of himself was shared by the young widows and unmarried ladies of his acquaintance.  He was about six feet high, with a graceful figure, and the head of a statesman.  A more intellectual face, and a broader or more massive brow, assisted, perhaps, in its general effect, by a slight baldness, were rarely if ever seen.  A distinguished professor of phrenology had picked out Quigg’s head from among half an acre of heads at a lecture upon that subject in the city, and had pronounced it the “model head,” greatly to the disgust of all the other large-skulled men in the hall.  The professor had also assured Quigg, upon learning who and what he was, that it was a solemn duty he owed to society to abandon the grocery business, and devote himself to “philosophical culture, the development of the humanities, and the true expansion of his interior individuality.”  Notwithstanding this flattering opinion, Quigg still sanded his sugar, and reduced his whiskey, and found his delight as well as his-profit in those gross material pursuits.