The fact was this; my truly noble captain sported a remarkably wide pair of blue trousers. Whether he thought it sailor-like, or whether his tailor was afraid of putting his lordship to short allowance of cloth, for fear of phlogistic consequences, I know not; but broad as was the beam of his lordship, still broader and more ample in proportion were the folds of this essential part of his drapery, quite enough to have embraced twice the volume of human flesh contained within them, large as it undoubtedly was. That "a stitch in time saves nine," is a wise saw, unhappily, like many others of the same thrifty kind, but little heeded in this our day. So it was with Lord Edward. A rent had, by some mischance, been made in the central seam, and, on the morning of the hurricane, was still unmended. When the gale came, it sought a quarrel with anything it could lay hold of, and the harmless trousers of Lord Edward became subject to its mighty and resistless devastation; the blustering Boreas entered by the seam aforesaid, and filled the trousers like the cheeks of a trumpeter. Yorkshire wool could not stand the inflated pressure, the dress split to ribbons, and soundly flagellated the very part it was intended to conceal. What could he do, "in sweet confusion lost, and dubious _flutterings_"--the only defence left against the rude blast was his shirt (for the weather was so warm that second garments were dispensed with), and this too being old, fled in tatters before the gale. In short, clap a sailor's jacket on the Gladiator in Hyde Park, and you have a fair view of Lord Edward in the hurricane.