When a thing of this sort is once fairly set going, where is it to end? When fashion does go mad, her madness is wonderful; and she very soon turns the world mad. Presently the young men appeared everywhere in black satin stocks, embroidered, some with flowers, and others with gold, and which went by the name of "_Titmouse-Ties_;" and in hats, with high crowns and rims a quarter of an inch in depth, called "_Tittlebats_." All the young blades about town, especially the clerks and shopmen in the city, dressed themselves in the most extravagant style; an amazing impetus was given to the cigar trade--whose shops were crowded, especially at nights; and every puppy that walked the streets puffed cigar-smoke in your eyes. In short, pert and lively _Titmice_ might be seen hopping about the streets in all directions. As for Tag-rag, wonders befell him. A paragraph in a paper pointed him out as the original of _Black-bag_, and his shop in Oxford Street as the scene of Titmouse's service. Thither quickly poured the tide of fashionable curiosity, and custom. His business was soon trebled. He wore his best clothes every day, and smirked and smiled, and bustled about amid the crowd in his shop, in a perfect fever of excitement. He began to think of buying the adjoining premises, and adding them to his own; and set his name down as a subscriber of a guinea a-year to the "Decayed Drapers' Association." Those were glorious times for Mr. Tag-rag. He was forced to engage a dozen extra hands; there were seldom less than fifty or a hundred persons in his shop at once; strings of carriages stood before his door, sometimes two deep, and continual strugglings occurred between the coachmen for precedence. In fact, Mr. Tag-rag believed that the MILLENNIUM (about which he had often heard wonders from Mr. Dismal Horror, who, it seemed, knew all about it--a fact of which he had first persuaded his congregation, _and then himself_) was coming in earnest. CHAPTER IX.