The difference between Jack at six, and Jack at seven, was the difference between a clock down and a clock wound up--between a bird in the shell, and a bird on the wing--between a bowl of punch before, and after, the spirit is poured in,--it was the difference between Philip drunk and Philip sober (or the reverse if you will)--between a lord mayor in his plain blue-coat and kerseys, and a lord mayor in his state robes;--between Grimaldi at the side-scene waiting to go on, with that most melancholy shadow on his face which tradition has so touchingly painted, and Grimaldi on the stage, in view of the convulsed spectators, the illuminator of congregated dulness, the instantaneous disperser of the blues, the explorer of every crevice of the heart wherein care can lurk--an embodied grin. It was the difference, to speak more exactly still, between Sappho at her toilet, and Sappho at an evening mask. To see Jack when just beginning to prepare for a drop-in somewhere, late at night--between ten and twelve--was almost as good as seeing him when arrived there. The rash promise made, he always contrived to fulfil it--though it was often ten chances to one that he did not, and he appeared to keep his engagements by miracle. As the hour drew nigh, you would imagine that he had just received tidings of the dreadful loss of several relatives per railroad, or that half his income had been swallowed up in a mine, or forged exchequer-bills. It would be impossible to conjecture that his shrugs and sighs, peevish gestures and muttered execrations, were but the dark shadows of a brilliant "coming event"--that discontent and mortification were the forerunners of the gay Hours, and that bitter moroseness, limping and growling, announced the approach of the dancing Pleasures! So it was; for Jack at that moment, instead of hailing these dancing Pleasures by anticipation, and meeting them at least half-way, would gladly have ridden ten miles in any other direction. He could make himself tolerably comfortable anywhere, save at the place to which he was ruthlessly, imperiously bound--with anybody, save with the people who were anxiously waiting for a glimpse of his good-humoured visage. He was fully bent on going, in fact he felt that he must; yet he raised every obstacle that ill-temper could invent, knowing all the while that he should be obliged to surmount them. He would even allow his reluctance to stir, to prevail so far over the gentlemanly principle of his nature, as to question secretly within himself whether he _ought_ to go, while he entertained a suspicion that the people who had again invited him were not _quite_ prudent in giving so many expensive parties!