Tom Hill was another of Hook's more familiar associates. He is the Hull of "Gilbert Gurney," and is said to have been the original of Paul Pry, (which Poole, however, strenuously denied,)--a belief easily entertained by those who knew the man. A little, round man he was, with straight and well-made-up figure, and rosy cheeks that might have graced a milkmaid, when his years numbered certainly fourscore.[F] But his age no one ever knew. The story is well known of James Smith asserting that it never could be ascertained, for that the register of his birth was lost in the fire of London, and Hook's comment,--"Oh, he's much older than that: he's one of the little Hills that skipped in the Bible." He was a merry man, _toujours gai_, who seemed as if neither trouble nor anxiety had ever crossed his threshold or broken the sleep of a single night of his long life. His peculiar faculty was to find out what everybody did, from the minister of state to the stable-boy; and there are tales enough told of his chats with child-maids in the Park, to ascertain the amounts of their wages, and with lounging footmen in Grosvenor Square, to learn how many guests had dined at a house the day previous. His curiosity seemed bent upon prying into small things; for secrets that involved serious matters he appeared to care nothing. "Pooh, pooh, Sir, don't tell me; I happen to know!" That phrase was continually coming from his lips. Of a far higher and better order was Hook's friend, Mr. Brodrick,--so long one of the police magistrates,--a gentleman of large acquirements and sterling rectitude. Nearly as much may be said of Dubois, more than half a century ago the editor of a then popular magazine, "The Monthly Mirror." Dubois, in his latter days, enjoyed a snug sinecure, and lived in Sloane Street. He was a pleasant man in face and in manners, and retained to the last much of the humor that characterized the productions of his earlier years. To the admirable actor and estimable gentleman, Charles Mathews, I can merely allude. His memory has received full honor and homage from his wife; but there are few who knew him who will hesitate to indorse her testimony to his many excellences of head and heart.