as extraordinary, at Paris, not a hundred years ago, for a small bet.  He was one of the stoutest, thickest-built men possible, yet being but eighteen, had neither whisker nor moustache to masculate his clear English complexion.  At the Maison Doree one night he offered to ride in the Champs Elysees in a lady’s habit, and not be mistaken for a man.  A friend undertook to dress him, and went all over Paris to hire a habit that would fit his round figure.  It was hopeless for a time, but at last a good-sized body was found, and added thereto, an ample skirt.  Felix dressed his hair with mainte plats and a net.  He looked perfect, but in coming out of the hairdresser’s to get into his fly, unconsciously pulled up his skirt and displayed a sturdy pair of well-trousered legs.  A crowd—­there is always a ready crowd in Paris—­was waiting, and the laugh was general.  This hero reached the horse-dealer’s—­’mounted,’ and rode down the Champs.  ’A very fine woman that,’ said a Frenchman in the promenade, ’but what a back she has!’ It was in the return bet to this that a now well-known diplomat drove a goat-chaise and six down the same fashionable resort, with a monkey, dressed as a footman, in the back seat.  The days of folly did not, apparently end with Beau Nash.

There is a long lacuna in the history of this worthy’s life, which may have been filled up by a residence in a spunging-house, or by a temporary appointment as billiard-marker; but the heroic Beau accounted for his disappearance at this time in a much more romantic manner.  He used to relate that he was once asked to dinner on board of a man-of-war under orders for the Mediterranean, and that such was the affection the officers entertained for him, that, having made him drunk—­no difficult matter—­they weighed anchor, set sail, and carried the successor of King Bladud away to the wars.  Having gone so far, Nash was not the man to neglect an opportunity for imaginary valour.  He therefore continued to relate, that, in the apocryphal vessel, he was once engaged in a yet more apocryphal encounter, and wounded in the leg.  This was a little too much for the good Bathonians to believe, but Nash silenced their doubts.  On one occasion, a lady who was present when he was telling this story, expressed her incredulity.

‘I protest, madam,’ cried the Beau, lifting his leg up, ’it is true, and if I cannot be believed, your ladyship may, if you please, receive further information and feel the ball in my leg.’

Wherever Nash may have passed the intervening years, may be an interesting speculation for a German professor, but is of little moment to us.  We find him again, at the age of thirty, taking first steps towards the complete subjugation of the kingdom he afterwards ruled.