Fate saved me a world of trouble; as I was hastily walking onwards, I happened to turn my eyes on the opposite side of the way, and discovered a man dressed, in what the newspapers term, the very height of the fashion, namely, in the most ostentatious attire that ever flaunted at Margate, or blazoned in the Palais Royale. The nether garments of this petit maitre, consisted of a pair of blue tight pantaloons, profusely braided, and terminating in Hessian boots, adorned with brass spurs of the most burnished resplendency; a black velvet waistcoat, studded with gold stars, was backed by a green frock coat, covered, notwithstanding the heat of the weather, with fur, and frogged and cordonne with the most lordly indifference, both as to taste and expense: a small French hat, which might not have been much too large for my Lord of P--, was set jauntily in the centre of a system of long black curls, which my eye, long accustomed to penetrate the arcana of habilatory art, discovered at once to be a wig. A fierce black mustacheo, very much curled, wandered lovingly from the upper lip, towards the eyes, which had an unfortunate prepossession for eccentricity in their direction. To complete the picture, we must suppose some colouring--and this consisted in a very nice and delicate touch of the rouge pot, which could not be called by so harsh a term as paint; say, rather that it was a tinge. No sooner had I set my eyes upon this figure, than I crossed over to the side of the way which it was adorning, and followed its motions at a respectful but observant distance. At length my freluquet marched into a jeweller’s shop in Oxford-street; with a careless air, I affected, two minutes afterwards, to saunter into the same shop; the shopman was shewing his bijouterie to him of the Hessians with the greatest respect; and, beguiled by the splendour of the wig and waistcoat, turned me over to his apprentice--another time, I might have been indignant at perceiving that the air noble, on which I piqued myself far more than all other gifts of nature, personal or mental, was by no means so universally acknowledged as I had vainly imagined--at that moment I was too occupied to think of my insulted dignity. While I was pretending to appear wholly engrossed with some seals, I kept a vigilant eye on my superb fellow customer: at last, I saw him secrete a diamond ring, and thrust it, by a singular movement of the fore finger, up the fur cuff of his capacious sleeve; presently, some other article of minute size disappeared in the like manner.