After arriving at the establishment, Charley would strip off his "top hamper," placing his finery in a closet with the care and diligence of a maiden of thirty, and upwards. Then, donning a rude pair of over-alls and coat, he condescended to go to work. Now, in the said establishment, our _beau_ had few friends; the men, girls, and boys were "down" upon him; the men, because of his dandyism; the females hated him, because Charley stuck his long nose _up_ at "shop girls," and wouldn't no more notice them in the streets, than if they were chimney sweepers or decayed esculents! We boys didn't like him no how, generally, though it was policy for him to treat us tolerably decent, because his pride made it imperiously necessary that some of the "little breeches" should do small chores, errands, bringing water from the street, carrying down to _the shop_ goods, etc., which might otherwise devolve upon himself. But men, girls and boys were always scheming and practising jokes and tricks upon the _beau_. The boys would all rush off to dinner--first having so dirtied the water, hid the towels and soap, that poor Charley would necessarily be obliged to go down into the public street and bring up a bucket of the clean element to wash his begrimed face and hands. And mark the difficulties and _diplomacy_ of such an arrangement. Charley would slip down into the lower entry, peep out to see if any body was looking,--if a genteel person was visible, the _beau_ held back with his bucket; after various reconnaissances, the coast would appear clear, and the _beau_ would dash out to the pump, agitate "the iron-tailed cow" with the force and speed of an infantile earthquake--snatch up the bucket, and with one _dart_ hit the doorway, and glide up stairs, thanking his stars that nobody "seen him do it!" In one of these _forays_ for water, the _beau_ was decidedly cornered by two of the "shop girls." They, sly creatures, observed poor Charley from an upper "landing" of the stairway, in the entry below, watching his chance to get a clear coast to fill his dirty bucket. The moment the beau darted out, down rush the girls--slam to the door and bar it! The _beau_, dreaming of no such diabolical inventions, gives the pump an awful _surge_, fills the bucket, looks down the street, and--O! murder, there come two ladies--the first _cuts_ of the city, to whom Charley had once the honor of a personal introduction! With his face turned over his shoulder at the _ladies_--his nether limbs desperately nerved for _tall walking_,--he dashes at the supposed open entryway, and--nearly knocked the panel out of the door, smashing the bucket, spilling the water, and slightly killing himself! It was almost "a cruel joke," in the girls, who, taking advantage of the stunning effect of the operation, unbarred the door and vanished, before poor Charley picked himself up and scrambled into the lower store to recuperate.