Then there is the pumpkin after the cut of the Prince Regent--the man of deportment, big, handsome, showy, and specially noticeable for a loud voice, a broad chest, and an indescribable air of superiority and command; the man who has studied bowing as one of the fine arts, who walks with a swagger, and even now tips his curly-brimmed hat slightly to the side. This is the kind of man who influences women. Bombastes frightens the nervous and inexperienced of his own sex, but the man of deportment partly fascinates and partly overawes the other. They take him at his own valuation, and have not skill enough to find out the flaw in the summing up until perhaps it is too late, when they have come so near to him that they are able to appraise him for themselves, and have learnt by bitter experience of what unsound materials he is made. And then let him look out. There is nothing women resent so much as pumpkin manhood--nothing which humiliates them more in their own esteem than to discover that they have been taken in by appearances, and that what they had believed in as solid wood turns out to be only squash. Women like to rely on men, and dread nothing so much as weakness and vacillation in their male protectors; save indeed those grim and bulky females in whom Hood so much delighted, who take small men _vi et armis_, and subjugate them body and soul, like two-legged poodles trained to fetch and carry at the word of command. But these are exceptions; the average woman prizing strength rather than poodle-like docility. The pumpkin of the Prince Regent cut is generally notorious for laying down the law on all points. His voice is so loud and his manner of speech so dictatorial, that no one dreams of doubting still less of contradicting him, but everybody takes him as he represents himself to be--a man of prompt decision, of boundless resources, a granitic tower of strength to be leant against in all emergencies without the slightest fear of failure; a man who is not only sufficient for himself but strong enough to bear the weaknesses of others. He is famous for giving advice--advice of a vague, rapid, sprawling kind, never quite exact to the circumstances, never quite practical nor to the point--large advice, general in scope but wonderfully positive in tone, and, until you analyze, grandly imposing in effect. Nail him to the point; ask his advice seriously on any question where the responsibility of counsel will rest with him; place yourself in his hands where the consequences of failure will touch him as well as you; and then see to what meagre dimensions your goodly gourd will shrink. The confident assertion drops into a weak hesitation; the arrogant dictum melts into a timid refusal to take such a serious responsibility on himself; you have pricked your windbag, bisected your pumpkin, and henceforth you know the precise weight of substance remaining. Yet mankind sees him exactly where he