The back of this form was turned to me, and I could observe, from the shoulders and neck, it was that of an old woman, whose dress was an old-fashioned gown, which, I think, ladies call a sacque--that is, a sort of robe completely loose in the body, but gathered into broad plaits upon the neck and shoulders, which fall down to the ground, and terminate in a species of train. =Tap´ley= (_Mark_), an honest, light-hearted young man, whose ambition was “to come out jolly” under the most unfavorable circumstances. Greatly attached to Martin Chuzzlewit, he leaves his comfortable situation at the Blue Dragon to accompany him to America, and in “Eden” has ample opportunities of “being jolly,” so far as wretchedness could make him so. On his return to England he marries Mrs. Lupin, and thus becomes landlord of the Blue Dragon.--C. Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, xiii., xxi., etc. (1843). Charles [_VII. of France_] was the Mark Tapley of kings, and bore himself with his usual “jollity” under this afflicting news. It was remarked of him that “no one could lose a kingdom with greater gaiety.”--Rev. J. White. =Tappertit= (_Sim_, i.e., _Simon_), the apprentice of Gabriel Varden, locksmith. He was just 20 in years, but 200 in conceit. An old-fashioned, thin-faced, sleek-haired, sharp-nosed, small-eyed little fellow was Mr. Sim Tappertit, about five feet high, but thoroughly convinced in his own mind that he was both good looking and above the middle size, in fact, rather tall than otherwise. His figure, which was slender, he was proud of; and with his legs, which in knee-breeches were perfect curiosities of littleness, he was enraptured. He had also a secret notion that the power of his eye was irresistible, and he believed that he could subdue the haughtiest beauty “by eyeing her.” Of course Mr. Tappertit had an ambitious soul, and admired his master’s daughter, Dolly. He was captain of the secret society of “’Prentice Knights,” whose object was “vengeance against their tyrant masters.” After the Gordon riots, in which Tappertit took a leading part, he was found “burnt and bruised, with a gun-shot wound in his body and both his legs crushed into shapeless ugliness.” The cripple, by the locksmith’s aid, turned shoe-black under an archway near the Horse Guards, thrived in his vocation, and married the widow of a rag-and-bone collector. While an apprentice, Miss Miggs, the “protestant” shrewish servant of Mrs. Varden, cast an eye of hope on “Simmun;” but the conceited puppy pronounced her “decidedly scraggy,” and disregarded the soft impeachment.--C. Dickens, _Barnaby Rudge_ (1841). (See SYLLI.)