At length he reached his destination, which was a shop of fine appearance in Drury Lane, just off the main thoroughfare of Holborn.  It was then a street of some pretensions, albeit a narrow one, and Tom’s eyes soon espied the name he was in search of over the door of a shop round which a score or more of gallants were lounging.  In the doorway itself stood a very fine youth, at least he was fine as to his raiment, although he wore no wig and was but an apprentice of better figure and deportment than most.  He was displaying to the admiring crowd a mighty fine waistcoat of embroidered satin, worked in gold and colours very cunningly, and trimmed with a frosted-gold cord of new design and workmanship.  It was this waistcoat, which the young man called the Blenheim vest, that had attracted the crowd, and Tom could not at first get near the door, so much chaffering and laughing and rough play was going on round it.

So he filled up the time by seeking to understand the extraordinary jargon which was spoken by the young dandies, in which he was not particularly successful (for in addition to a marvellous assortment of oaths, they talked a mixture of bad English, worse French, and vilest Latin), and in examining the signboard which hung out over the doorway of Master Cale’s abode.

This sign had been painted to the perruquier’s own design, at a time when there threatened to be a reaction in favour of natural hair in place of the monstrous perukes so long worn.  The picture represented a young man clad in all the finery of a fop of Charles the Second’s court, save only the peruke, hanging by his hair from the limb of a giant oak, with three javelins in his heart, whilst below sat weeping a man in royal crown and robes; and below this picture there ran the following legend: 

“O Absalom!  O Absalom! 
O Absalom! my son,
If thou hadst worn a periwig
Thou hadst not been undone.”

In the window of the shop was set out an array of the most wonderfully curled wigs, perfect marvels of the perruquier’s art; and, indeed, the size of the young dandies’ heads was a study in extravagance quite as wonderful in its way as the towers upon the heads of the ladies.

When presently the group had moved away, and the apprentice in the fine vest had a moment’s leisure, Tom came forward and asked if Master Cale were within.

The youth regarded him with some insolence of manner, but as he might be addressing a future customer from the country, he replied with a show of civility that Master Cale was in the room behind the shop, curling the perukes of some gentlemen, but that Tom could go inside and wait if he liked.  This he accordingly did, and soon the apprentice was surrounded by another crowd, and was taking orders thick and fast for the Blenheim vest.