“I will give you a receipt for the amount, my friend.  Many men have made me their banker before now, and have not regretted it.  You shall have a comfortable room above stairs, and you can either be served with your meals there, or take them with me, or at some coffee house, as best pleases you; and as for the outfit—­why, it will be a pleasure to clothe a pretty fellow of your inches in fitting raiment.  But be advised by me; seek not to be too fine.  Quiet elegance will better befit your figure.  I would have you avoid equally the foppery of the court beaux and the swaggering self-importance of those they call the bully beaux, with whom you are certain to make acquaintance ere long.”

Tom was willing to listen to advice in these matters, and the little perruquier soon threw himself almost with enthusiasm into the subject of the young man’s outfit.  They spent above two hours looking over cloths and satins and scarfs, trying effects, and fitting on perukes.  Tom had never before imagined how important and engrossing a matter dress could be, nor how many articles of attire were necessary to a man who wished to cut a good figure.

But at last he grew weary of the subject, and said he would fain take a stroll in the streets, and breathe the outer air again.  He felt the stifling presence of encircling walls, and longed to get out into the starlit night.

“The streets are none too safe at night for peaceful citizens,” remarked Master Cale, with a shake of the head.  “But I have a peruke to take to a client who lives hard by Snowe Hill.  If you needs must go, let us go together; and gird on yonder sword ere you start.  For if men walk unarmed in the streets of a night, they are thought fair game for all the rogues and bullies who prowl from tavern to tavern seeking for diversion.  They do not often attack an armed man; but a quiet citizen who has left his sword behind him seldom escapes without a sweating, if nothing worse befall him.”

“And what is this sweating?” asked Tom, as the pair sallied forth into the darkness of the streets.

Here and there an oil lamp shed a sickly glow for a short distance; but, for the most part, the streets were very dim and dark.  Lights gleamed in a good many upper windows still; but below—­where the shutters were all up—­darkness and silence reigned.

“Sweating,” answered Cale, “is a favourite pastime with the bullies of London streets.  A dozen or more with drawn swords surround a hapless and unarmed passer by.  They will close upon him in a circle, the points of their swords towards him, and then one will prick him in the rear, causing him to turn quickly round, whereupon another will give him a dig in the same region, and again he will jump and face about; and so they will keep the poor fellow spinning round and round, like a cockchafer on a pin, until the sweat pours off him, and they themselves are weary of the sport.  But, hist!  I hear a band of them coming.  Slip we into this archway, and let them pass by.  I would not have my wig box snatched away; and there is no limit to the audacity of those bully beaux when they have drunk enough to give them Dutch courage.  Discretion is sometimes better than valour.”