“Well, if I get a little polishing, perhaps you might. Italian I hope to be able to add ere long; and, in due time, German.” Gingham now turned half round in his saddle, and addressed me with great gravity. “Mr Y—, my dear sir, I venture, as a friend, to offer one suggestion. If a person, not older than yourself, applied for an engagement in the corresponding line, I would say to him—that is, in the strictest confidence, speaking as a friend—‘Say only three languages; wouldn’t advise you to say more.’ The principal, however unjustly, might suspect—excuse me, I speak candidly—might suspect a little romancing. In short, if a person under eight-and-twenty or thirty said five languages, it might prevent an engagement.” Gingham, I should observe, talked just as he always did. There was still the touch of mannerism, the quiet earnestness blended with courtesy. I never viewed any man with more unfeigned respect and esteem; and yet there were moments, in the course of our present conversation, when I could scarcely refrain from laughing in his face. True, I was one year farther removed from boyhood than when our acquaintance commenced; and more than one incident had taught me, in the interval, the necessity of respecting “time, place, and circumstances.” But the trial was great; a gravity that even Liston could not shake, would have been shaken by Gingham. Still there was his comical solemnity. Still there was his politeness, touched off with formality. Still there were his green barnacles, and his two little winky-pinky eyes. Still, still there was his irresistible nose. Stand everything else, I would defy you to stand that. Great, please to observe, was the difference between Gingham’s nose and Hookey’s, though both arrested the beholder. When Hookey and Gingham met on board the packet, each observed of the other that he had a very odd nose. The first meeting of the two noses, and the look exchanged by the two wearers, beat anything in Molière—so much more comical is nature than fancy. Hookey’s, unquestionably the most marked feature of a very marked countenance, did nevertheless so far maintain the unities, that it perfectly harmonised with the rest of his physiognomy. It was an eagle’s beak, and his whole face was aquiline. Gingham’s, on the contrary, was conspicuous by contrast. It had no appearance of belonging to his face. You might fancy him one of the triumphs of Talicotius—a man (on which subject see Lavater) with a false nose. Neither broad nor massive, yet prominent and conspicuous, it was slightly crooked, flattened on one side; as if, when a baby, he had slept too much on his right cheek, and his nose, from its thinness, had got bent towards his left. This nose, I say, from its peculiar expression, or rather want of expression, appeared no part or parcel of the face in which it stood. And, what was unfortunate, its extraneous appearance was most marked when Gingham was most in earnest; so that it