‘He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was any encouragement for native talent, he’d have been at the opera. He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described, when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old gentleman with a telescope in his hand, throw up a window and look at him very hard. ‘Tom didn’t know what could be passing in this old gentleman’s mind. He thought it likely enough that he might be saying within himself, “Here’s a new lamplighter—a good-looking young fellow—shall I stand something to drink?” Thinking this possible, he keeps quite still, pretending to be very particular about the wick, and looks at the old gentleman sideways, seeming to take no notice of him. ‘Gentlemen, he was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons—in short, with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved, and by his not being over-clean, and by a sort of wisdom not quite awake, in his face, that he was a scientific old gentleman. He often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should have said the old gentleman’s body was that Body. ‘The old gentleman claps the telescope to his eye, looks all round, sees nobody else in sight, stares at Tom again, and cries out very loud: ‘“Hal-loa!” ‘“Halloa, Sir,” says Tom from the ladder; “and halloa again, if you come to that.” ‘“Here’s an extraordinary fulfilment,” says the old gentleman, “of a prediction of the planets.” ‘“Is there?” says Tom. “I’m very glad to hear it.” ‘“Young man,” says the old gentleman, “you don’t know me.” ‘“Sir,” says Tom, “I have not that honour; but I shall be happy to drink your health, notwithstanding.” ‘“I read,” cries the old gentleman, without taking any notice of this politeness on Tom’s part—“I read what’s going to happen, in the stars.” ‘Tom thanked him for the information, and begged to know if anything particular was going to happen in the stars, in the course of a week or so; but the old gentleman, correcting him, explained that he read in the stars what was going to happen on dry land, and that he was acquainted with all the celestial bodies. ‘“I hope they’re all well, Sir,” says Tom,—“everybody.”