There are several loungers at this part of the town, who belong neither to the race of Gents nor Foreigners, and certainly are not military, although they evidently wish to be considered so; to whom we may briefly allude; for they partake, in a slight degree, of the characteristics of the former. They wear mustaches and curious frock-coats, sometimes with dabs of braid about them. Their hair is wiry and dark, and they are constantly arranging it with their hands. Sometimes they are seen with spurs; occasionally they carry a black cane, shouldered like a gun, twisted round their arm, with its head in their pocket, held upside down, in any way but the normal one. Day after day, when it is fine; nay, year after year; there they are, true _batteurs de pavé_. You may follow them for hours, and you will never see them speak to, or recognised by, any body. They do not even commune with each other. Nobody knows them; they belong to no club, and are never seen anywhere else. And it is remarkable that, like butterflies, you only come across them in bright weather. Where they go to at other times we cannot tell; we shall never be able to do so, until we have solved two other similar enigmas with respect to pins and bluebottles; and their ultimate destination is, to our thinking, the greatest marvel of the present day. For the corpses of the latter, found in grocers’ windows and saucers of unacknowledged poisons, and the rusty remains of the former discovered between boards, bear no comparison to the numbers that have existed. This disappearance is as remarkable as the generation of the fine woolly substance you find in the corner of your waistcoat pocket, where you have only kept a pencil-case and latch-key. But this by the way. [Illustration] We have said the Gent likes to be outside an omnibus. But he also loves the roof—literally, the roof; and he almost rejoices when he finds that the box is full, and he is obliged to perch there; for his mind appears to be brightened by his position, and many eccentricities are induced. He nods to other passengers as they pass, in a familiar manner, causing them to puzzle themselves almost into insanity during the remainder of the day, in endeavours to recollect who he could have been. He winks at the elder pupils of the promenading Hammersmith academies, if on their road; and tells old ladies, when they get out to go away, to give his love at home, and that he will be sure to write to them. He also has a cigar here, and he offers one to the coachman and other passengers. Before stages were exterminated the Gent preferred the box just the same; indeed, he felt in a measure degraded if he could not get it; and when the coachman got down he liked to hold the reins and whip in the proper manner, and show people that he was perfectly used to such a thing, and, for aught they could tell, might have a four-in-hand of his own.