“You were telling me about a donkey, Miss —–­, a donkey of your brother’s—­Braham, I think you called him—­yes, Braham; a strange name for an ass!  I wonder what the great Mr. Braham would say to that.  Ha, ha, ha!”

“Your memory must be excellent, Mr. Wilson, to enable you to remember such a trifling circumstance all this time.”

“Trifling, do you call it?  Why, I have thought of nothing else ever since.”

From traits such as these my readers will be tempted to imagine him brother to the animal who had dwelt so long in his thoughts; but there were times when he surmounted this strange absence of mind, and could talk and act as sensibly as other folks.

On the death of his father, he emigrated to New South Wales, where he contrived to doze away seven years of his valueless existence, suffering his convict servants to rob him of everything, and finally to burn his dwelling.  He returned to his native village, dressed as an Italian mendicant, with a monkey perched upon his shoulder, and playing airs of his own composition upon a hurdy-gurdy.  In this disguise he sought the dwelling of an old bachelor uncle, and solicited his charity.  But who that had once seen our friend Tom could ever forget him?  Nature had no counterpart of one who in mind and form was alike original.  The good-natured old soldier, at a glance, discovered his hopeful nephew, received him into his house with kindness, and had afforded him an asylum ever since.

One little anecdote of him at this period will illustrate the quiet love of mischief with which he was imbued.  Travelling from W—–­ to London in the stage-coach (railways were not invented in those days), he entered into conversation with an intelligent farmer who sat next to him; New South Wales, and his residence in that colony, forming the leading topic.  A dissenting minister who happened to be his vis-a-vis, and who had annoyed him by making several impertinent remarks, suddenly asked him, with a sneer, how many years he had been there.

“Seven,” returned Tom, in a solemn tone, without deigning a glance at his companion.

“I thought so,” responded the other, thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets.  “And pray, sir, what were you sent there for?”

“Stealing pigs,” returned the incorrigible Tom, with the gravity of a judge.  The words were scarcely pronounced when the questioner called the coachman to stop, preferring a ride outside in the rain to a seat within with a thief.  Tom greatly enjoyed the hoax, which he used to tell with the merriest of all grave faces.

Besides being a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and always imagining himself in love with some unattainable beauty, he had a passionate craze for music, and played upon the violin and flute with considerable taste and execution.  The sound of a favourite melody operated upon the breathing automaton like magic, his frozen faculties experienced a sudden thaw, and the stream of life leaped and gambolled for a while with uncontrollable vivacity.  He laughed, danced, sang, and made love in a breath, committing a thousand mad vagaries to make you acquainted with his existence.