Then There Was A Creature To Do Justice To Whose
Appearance Would Require The Pencil Of A Hogarth.
He was about
five feet three inches and a quarter high, and might have weighed,
always provided a stone weight had been attached to him, about half
as much as the fat girl.
His countenance was cadaverous and was
eternally agitated by something between a grin and a simper. He
was dressed in a style of superfine gentility, and his skeleton
fingers were bedizened with tawdry rings. His conversation was
chiefly about his bile and his secretions, the efficacy of licorice
in producing a certain effect, and the expediency of changing one's
linen at least three times a day; though had he changed his six, I
should have said that the purification of the last shirt would have
been no sinecure to the laundress. His accent was decidedly
Scotch: he spoke familiarly of Scott and one or two other Scotch
worthies, and more than once insinuated that he was a member of
Parliament. With respect to the rest of the company I say nothing,
and for the very sufficient reason that, unlike the above described
batch, they did not seem disposed to be impertinent towards me.
Eager to get out of such society I retired early to bed. As I left
the room the diminutive Scotch individual was describing to the old
simpleton, who on the ground of the other's being a "member," was
listening to him with extreme attention, how he was labouring under
an access of bile owing to his having left his licorice somewhere
or other.
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