kicksies.  His feet know only one pattern shoe, the ancle-jack (or highlow as it is sometimes called), resplendent with “Day and Martin,” or the no less brilliant “Warren.”  Genius of propriety, we have described his tail before that index of the mind, that idol of phrenologists, his pimple!—­we beg pardon, we mean his head.  Round, and rosy as a pippin, it stands alone in its native loveliness, on the heap of clothes beneath.

Tom is not a low man; he has not a particle of costermongerism in his composition, though his discourse savours of that peculiar slang that might be considered rather objectionable in the salons of the elite.

The bell which he has the honour to answer hangs at the gate of a west-end livery-stables, and his consequence is proportionate.  To none under the degree of a groom does he condescend a nod of recognition—­with a second coachman he drinks porter—­and purl (a compound of beer and blue ruin) with the more respectable individual who occupies the hammer-cloth on court-days.  Tom estimates a man according to his horse, and his civility is regulated according to his estimation.  He pockets a gratuity with as much ease as a state pensioner; but if some unhappy wight should, in the plenitude of his ignorance, proffer a sixpence, Tom buttons his pockets with a smile, and politely “begs to leave it till it becomes more.”

With an old meerschaum and a pint of tolerable sherry, we seat ourselves at our window, and hold many an imaginative conversation with our friend Tom.  Sometimes we are blest with more than ideality; but that is only when he unbends and becomes jocular and noisy, or chooses a snug corner opposite our window to enjoy his otium—­confound that phrase!—­we would say his indolence and swagger—­

  “A pound to a hay-seed agin’ the bay.”

Hallo! that’s Tom!  Yes—­there he comes laughing out of “Box 4,” with three others—­all first coachmen.  One is making some very significant motions to the potboy at the “Ram and Radish,” and, lo!  Ganymede appears with a foaming tankard of ale.  Tom has taken his seat on an inverted pail, and the others are grouped easily, if not classically, around him.

One is resting his head between the prongs of a stable-fork; another is spread out like the Colossus of Rhodes; whilst a gentleman in a blue uniform has thrown himself into an attitude a la Cribb, with the facetious intention of “letting daylight into the wittling department” of the pot-boy of the “Ram and Radish.”

Tom has blown the froth from the tankard, and (as he elegantly designates it) “bit his name in the pot.”  A second has “looked at the maker’s name;” and another has taken one of those positive draughts which evince a settled conviction that it is a last chance.

Our friend has thrust his hands into the deepest depths of his breeches-pocket, and cocking one eye at the afore-named blue uniform, asks—­