“When I came to ask your advice, Anderson, it was with the intention of being guided by it, even if it had not coincided with my own opinion, which, now that I have heard your reasons, it certainly does.  By the bye, I have not yet called upon Mrs. St. Felix, and I will go now.  You will see old Nanny again?”

“I will, my boy, this evening.  Good-by!  I’m very busy now, for the officers will inspect to-morrow morning.”

I quitted the hospital, and had arrived in Church Street, when, passing the doctor’s house on my way to Mrs. St. Felix, Mr. Thomas Cobb, who had become a great dandy, and, in his own opinion at least, a great doctor, called to me, “Saunders, my dear fellow, just come in, I wish to speak with you particularly.”  I complied with his wishes.  Mr. Cobb was remarkable in his dress.  Having sprung up to the height of at least six feet in his stockings, he had become remarkably thin and spare, and the first idea that struck you when you saw him was that he was all pantaloons; for he wore blue cotton net tight pantaloons, and his Hessian boots were so low, and his waistcoat so short, that there was at least four feet, out of the sum total of six, composed of blue cotton net, which fitted very close to a very spare figure.  He wore no cravat, but a turn-down collar with a black ribbon, his hair very long, with a very puny pair of mustachios on his upper lip, and something like a tuft on his chin.  Altogether, he was a strange-looking being, especially when he had substituted for his long coat a short nankeen jacket, which was the case at the time I am speaking of.

“Well, Mr. Cobb, what maybe your pleasure with me?  You must not detain me long, as I was about to call on Mrs, St. Felix.”

“So I presumed, my dear sir,” replied he; “and for that very reason I requested you to walk in.  Take a chair.  Friendship, Tom, is a great blessing; it is one of the charms of life.  We have known each other long, and it is to tax your friendship that I have requested you to come in.”

“Well, be as quick as you can, that’s all,” replied I.

“Festina lent, as Dr. Tadpole often says, adding that it is Latin for hat and boots.  I am surprised at his ignorance of the classics; any schoolboy ought to know that caput is the Latin for hat, and Booetes for boots.  But lately I have abandoned the classics, and have given up my soul to poetry.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes; ‘Friendship and Love’ is my toast, whenever I am called upon at the club.  What does Campbell say?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you, Tom—­

“’Without the smile from heav’nly beauty won, Oh, what were man?  A world without a sun.’”

“Well, I daresay it’s all true,” replied I; “for if a woman does not smile upon a man he’s not very likely to marry her, and therefore has no chance of having a son.”

“Tom, you have no soul for poetry.”