Volume Three, Chapter III. MR JARKER'S TRAITS. Men of business cannot afford to continue their grief for any length of time, hence at a very short date after the death of his wife, Mr William Jarker, bird-fancier, bird-catcher, and pigeon-trapper, to be heard of at any time at the Blue Posts, Hemlock-court, by such gents as wanted a few dozen of blue-rocks or sparrows for the next trap-match at Wormwood Scrubbs, stood before a piece of looking-glass nailed to the wall of his room with three tin-tacks, a ragged, three-cornered, wavy-looking scrap, from which, if a little more of the quicksilver had been rubbed off, it would never again have been guilty of distorting the human face divine. Upon this occasion it played strange pranks with the expressive countenance of Mr Jarker, as he stood, with oily fingers, giving the required gloss and under-turn to his side-locks, which were of the true "Newgate-knocker" pattern, their length denoting how long a time Mr Jarker had been running fancy free without troubling her Majesty's officials for his daily rations and lodging, in return for which he would scrub, polish, and clean to order. Mr Jarker seemed to take extra pains over his toilet, arranging his neck-tie and the silver-mounted lens, buttoning-up his red-plush waistcoat with the fustian back and sleeves, cleaning his finger-nails with the broken-out tooth of a comb, before he stood in front of the glass and smirked at himself. Now this was a mistake on Mr Jarker's part, for his was a style of countenance that would not bear a smirking; there was too much stiffness of contour in the various features, a blunt angularity which resisted the softening sweetness of a smirky smile, and the consequence was, that if he had smirked at a stranger, the said stranger would have flinched, from a very strong impression that Mr Jarker was rabid and about to bite. However, mistaken or not, Mr Jarker smirked several times, and after various patterns, before he frowned, which gave a much more respectable cast to his countenance, the scowl being most thoroughly in harmony. Mr Jarker frowned, for one of the side-locks would not keep in position and retain the required bend when he had crowned himself with his slouchy fur-cap; so the erring hair had to be again oiled, combed, and wetted with a solution of brown sugar, which the operator moistened in a natural way in the palms of his hands, then the lock was smoothed and tucked under, and proved a fixture; and now the cap was again placed in position, and displayed a thin wisp of crape fastened round it by means of a piece of string; for being a soldier engaged in the battle of life, Mr Jarker did not doff his uniform, but confined himself to the above slight manifestation of the fact that he was a widower.