But to my tale. The owner of the large optics--the bearer of "the tray," returned my gaze. Its result as to any favourable impression of my personal appearance on his mind seemed doubtful. He merely remarked, however, "Vell, you _are_ a nice swell for a small party, you are!" I walked on. The observation set me contemplating my admirable blue jacket, with its neat row of buttons; my exceedingly pleasing waistcoat, and pantaloons of black; my large white collar, and unexceptionable shirt-front; not to mention the Oxford shoes, and the beaver hat, which, on a pretence of excessive heat, and after the manner of elderly gentlemen in Kensington Gardens, I took off, that my eyes might be satisfied that _it_ was all right. The result of the scrutiny was a feeling that the remark of the wretch (who might or might not be following--look round again I dared not) was not only quite natural, but, taking the word "swell" in its better acceptation, quite consistent with the truth. On, therefore, I walked, and by the time I reached Sackville Street, became tranquil again. Now, to all London peripatetics the print-shop at the corner of that street must be well known. It was at this identical place that I made a halt, and a determination at the same time to have a regular jolly good look at all the pictures (for by St. James's it was now only two o'clock); beginning, in the orthodox way, with the last bar of the "airy" up Sackville Street, and "the Norwich mail in a thunderstorm;" and gradually proceeding to the last bar up Piccadilly, and an earnest scrutiny of some stout gentleman in spectacles, who always _will_ stand at the end of a print-shop window, to prevent one's satisfactorily finishing everything. "How uncertain are all sublunary things!"--"All that's bright must fade," &c., are remarks which one occasionally meets with in the works of English authors, and is very apt to treat with contempt. Yet who can predicate at two o'clock that he shall be happy at a quarter past? I had, in the prosecution of my plan, got half-way down the railings in Sackville Street, and had arrived opposite a peculiar pane of glass, wherein, as in a mirror, my own happy face, and the especial whiteness of my shirt-collar, were revealed to my gratified vision. I had just given the last-named a gentle pull up, and was smiling in the consciousness of "youth and grace, and"--in short, I was _satisfied_ with myself--when-- "Vell, I'm blowed if you an't precious sveet on that 'ere phiz o' your'n, young un!" I turned in horror. Close behind me there stood a butcher's boy--_the_ butcher's boy! (there was but one in London that day)--those eyes--those corduroys--_that tray_! I shrunk within myself--I almost wished that the bar I stood on might give way and admit me into the "airy." I mechanically uttered some deprecatory expression, scarce conscious of anything but the existence of a butcher's boy, with large eyes, and a tray!