Ensconced in a comfortable old chair--it is not every old chair that _is_ comfortable,--with pipe in mouth, and in full unbuttoned ease, his bushy cauliflower wig laid aside, by reason of the heat, reposed Dr. Small. Small, indeed, was somewhat of a misnomer, as applied to the worthy doctor, who, besides being no diminutive specimen of his kind, entertained no insignificant opinion of himself. His height was certainly not remarkable; but his width of shoulder--his sesquipedality of stomach--and obesity of calf--these were unique! Of his origin we know nothing; but presume he must, in some way or other, have been connected with the numerous family of "the Smalls," who, according to Christopher North, form the predominant portion of mankind. In appearance, the doctor was short-necked and puffy, with a sodden, pasty face, wherein were set eyes whose obliquity of vision was, in some measure, redeemed by their expression of humor. He was accounted a man of parts and erudition, and had obtained high honors at his university. Rigidly orthodox, he abominated the very names of Papists and Jacobites, amongst which heretical herd he classed his companion, Mr. Titus Tyrconnel--Ireland being with him synonymous with superstition and Catholicism--and every Irishman rebellious and schismatical. On this head he was inclined to be disputatious. His prejudices did not prevent him from passing the claret, nor from laughing, as heartily as a plethoric asthma and sense of the decorum due to the occasion would permit, at the quips and quirks of the Irishman, who, he admitted, notwithstanding his heresies, was a pleasant fellow in the main. And when, in addition to the flattery, a pipe had been insinuated by the officious Titus, at the precise moment that Small yearned for his afternoon's solace, yet scrupled to ask for it; when the door had been made fast, and the first whiff exhaled, all his misgivings vanished, and he surrendered himself to the soft seduction. In this Elysian state we find him. "Ah! you may say that, Dr. Small," said Titus, in answer to some observation of the vicar, "that's a most original apothegm. We all of us hould our lives by a thrid. Och! many's the sudden finale I have seen. Many's the fine fellow's heels tripped up unawares, when least expected. Death hangs over our heads by a single hair, as your reverence says, precisely like the sword of Dan Maclise,[6] the flatterer of Dinnish what-do-you-call-him, ready to fall at a moment's notice, or no notice at all--eh?--Mr. Coates. And that brings me back again to Sir Piers--poor gentleman--ah! we sha'n't soon see the like of him again!" "Poor Sir Piers!" said Mr. Coates, a small man, in a scratch wig, with a face red and round as an apple, and almost as diminutive. "It is to be regretted that his over-conviviality should so much have hastened his lamented demise." "Conviviality!" replied Titus; "no such thing--it was apoplexy--extravasation of _sarum_."