"Come now! Come now!" He spoke, as a groom to a horse cutting too many capers. "After the print of you, on the title-page of all the leading magazines--'Head of hair unparalleled outside the Polar regions, 3s. 6d. per bottle, and then throw away your combs!' Ah, Tommy, dust comes perfessional to me. We know what sends you into this here crib. Five hundred a week, and a royalty on sales. Pays better than ledgery slating!" I had heard of these absurd reports ere now, and I never hope to hear the last of them. Is there any credulity, among barbarians, a hundredth part as wild as that of the British public, in such matters? People of fair common sense, and with some experience of the world, believed that I was making an enormous income, by lending my name, and my countenance--full-front, profile, and three-quarters--to fellows who advertised hair-oil, balsams, electric, and fifty other sorts of comb, and even my own father's speciality, soap (such as cured all the convicts)--not one of whom, I deeply regret to assure you, upon my honour, as the member for Larkmount, ever paid me a shilling, or even asked me to dinner! But one is apt to dwell too much upon such trifles. If I have put a penny (one per cent., honest) into any enterprising tradesman's pocket, I make him a present of the honest portion, which would not be worth legal expenses. Questions of a thousandfold more importance thronged upon me now, as I entered the House, under convoy of the Member for Chimneystacks, who whispered to me, that the Dust-pan Bill was mainly of his own suggestion. Having been introduced already, at the end of the Autumnal sitting, I did not require his services in that way, but found a quiet corner for my hat, and thought of the time when I put down my trencher some five years ago in the chapel of _Corpus_. Then we rushed to hear the Royal Speech, rather like a mob of workmen, when the bell rings; and Sir Roland, whose strength lay in hurrying others more than himself, appeared quite at his leisure, and laughed, as he shook my hand, to find it trembling. "You'll soon get over that;" he said, as if he had been some fifty years in Parliament. "But who is your friend with the dark complexion?" I told him the story; but he did not laugh at all heartily, as I had expected. "An exceedingly dangerous fellow," he exclaimed. "To be sure, I know all about him now. One of the cleverest of all the Clasts, with the true pass-word for the Cabinet. An anarchist, a socialist, a communist, and everything else that rhymes with fist, which is the only tool to meet them with. Chumps is the man for such fellows; but we shall not have him here for a fortnight. There now, Faithful Commons, go home. But they will have no homes to go to, except a common, if all this comes to pass. And yet, how well it has been made to sound, for people who do not care for sense!"