The struggle here, then, to keep matters right, is dreadful. None but himself knows how dreadful--none but himself knows the thousand shifts and expedients he is compelled to have recourse to, to maintain appearances in this most important and most troublesome department. First, of the hat. It is a merciless and unfeeling hat; for it is obstinately hastening to decay, though it well knows that its sorely perplexed owner does _not_ know where on earth to get another. See what a watching and tending it requires to keep it from becoming absolutely unfit for the public eye, as the headpiece of a gentleman! Why, the watching and tending of a new-born infant is nothing to it. Consider how carefully it must be examined round and round every morning, that no new outward symptom of decay has made itself manifest. Consider the brushing, the smoothing down, the inking of corners and rims, the coaxing and wheedling, by softly squeezing it this way, and gently pulling it that, to induce it to keep as near as possible to its original shape. Nay, desperate attempts may sometimes be detected to make it assume yet a smarter form, in defiance of decay and dilapidation. Then, there is the stock. Stitching and inking again, with careful daily supervision. Then there is---- But we need enlarge no further on this part of our subject. But, mark, reader! every thing about the equivocal gentleman is not in this state of seediness. He would not be the equivocal gentleman at all, if this were the case. Some of the particulars of his outward man are good--in fact, stylish--and it is this incongruity that makes him out, that makes him what he is, and which so much puzzles you to class him when you see him. The equivocal gentleman _always_ manages to have one or two of the component parts of his dress of unimpeachable quality, but never can manage to have the whole in this palmy state. There is always something wrong--something below par; and, we may add, generally something outré, absurd, or extravagant. Perfect consistency and propriety in dress he never can attain, and perhaps would not, if he could; for one of the most marked features of his character is a craving after singularity, in the art and fashion of his habiliments. Overlooking himself what partial deficiencies there may be in this department of his entire man, and thinking that the world will overlook them too, the equivocal gentleman affects the "bang up." He is not content with desiring to impress beholders with the idea of his being merely a respectable sort of person: he desires much more than this. They must take him, if not certainly for a lord, at least for some great personage--for a--a--he does not himself, in fact, well know what--for a mysterious, indeterminate somebody, of mysterious and indeterminate consequence.