_Who_ is a gentleman, and yet who _is not_? The Prince of Darkness was one, and so was Mr. John Halifax, if we are to believe those who knew them best; and so was one "Pelham," according to the late Sir Edward Bulwer, Earl of Lytton, etc.; and it certainly seemed as if _he_ ought to know. And I was to be another, according to Roger Ibbetson, Esquire, of Ibbetson Hall, late Colonel of the--, and it certainly seemed as if he ought to know too! The word was as constantly on his lips (when talking to _me_) as though, instead of having borne her Majesty's commission, he were a hairdresser's assistant who had just come into an independent fortune. This course of tuition began pleasantly enough, before I left London, by his sending me to his tailors, who made me several beautiful suits; especially an evening suit, which has lasted me for life, alas; and these, after the uniform of the gray-coat school, were like an initiation to the splendors of freedom and manhood. Colonel Ibbetson--or Uncle Ibbetson, as I used to call him--was my mother's first cousin; my grandmother, Mrs. Biddulph, was the sister of his father, the late Archdeacon Ibbetson, a very pious, learned, and exemplary divine, of good family. But his mother (the Archdeacon's second wife) had been the only child and heiress of an immensely rich pawnbroker, by name Mendoza; a Portuguese Jew, with a dash of colored blood in his veins besides, it was said; and, indeed, this remote African strain still showed itself in Uncle Ibbetson's thick lips, wide open nostrils, and big black eyes with yellow whites--and especially in his long, splay, lark-heeled feet, which gave both himself and the best bootmaker in London a great deal of trouble. Otherwise, and in spite of his ugly face, he was not without a certain soldier-like air of distinction, being very tall and powerfully built. He wore stays, and an excellent wig, for he was prematurely bald; and he carried his hat on one side, which (in my untutored eyes) made him look very much like a "_swell_," but not quite like a _gentleman_. To wear your hat jauntily cocked over one eye, and yet "look like a gentleman!" It can be done, I am told; and has been, and is even still! It is not, perhaps, a very lofty achievement--but such as it is, it requires a somewhat rare combination of social and physical gifts in the wearer; and the possession of either Semitic or African blood does not seem to be one of these. [Illustration: "PORTRAIT CHARMANT, PORTRAIT DE MON AMIE ..."] Colonel Ibbetson could do a little of everything--sketch (especially a steam-boat on a smooth sea, with beautiful thick smoke reflected in the water), play the guitar, sing chansonnettes and canzonets, write society verses, quote De Musset-- _"Avez-vous vu dans Barcelone Une Andalouse au sein bruni?"_