'And can you tell me'--he asked--'what is the meaning of a nose?' 'A nose, my father'--said I--'has been variously defined, by about a thousand different authors. It is now noon, or thereabouts. We shall therefore have time enough to get through with them all by midnight. To commence:--The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that protuberance, that bump, that excrescence, that'---- 'That will do Thomas'--said my father. 'I am positively thunderstruck at the extent of your information--I am, upon my soul. Come here! (and he took me by the arm.) Your education may be considered as finished, and it is high time you should scuffle for yourself--so--so--so (here he kicked me down stairs and out of the door,) so get out of my house, and God bless you!' As I felt within me the divine _afflatus_, I considered this accident rather fortunate than otherwise, and determined to follow my nose. So I gave it a pull or two, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology. All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar. 'Wonderful genius!'--said the Quarterly. 'Superb physiologist!'--said the New Monthly. 'Fine writer!'--said the Edinburg. 'Great man!'--said Blackwood. '_Who_ can he be?'--said Mrs. Bas-Bleu. '_What_ can he be?'--said big Miss Bas-Bleu. '_Where_ can he be?'--said little Miss Bas-Bleu. But I paid them no manner of attention, and walked into the shop of an artist. The Duchess of Bless-my-soul was sitting for her portrait. The Marchioness of So-and-so was holding the Duchess's poodle. The Earl of This-and-that was flirting with her salts, and His Royal Highness of Touch-me-not was standing behind her chair. I merely walked towards the artist, and held up my proboscis. 'O beautiful!'--sighed the Duchess of Bless-my-soul. 'O pretty!'--lisped the Marchioness of So-and-so. 'Horrible!'--groaned the Earl of This-and-that. 'Abominable!'--growled his Highness of Touch-me-not. 'What will you take for it?'--said the artist. 'A thousand pounds'--said I, sitting down. 'A thousand pounds?'--he inquired, turning the nose to the light. 'Precisely'--said I. 'Beautiful!'--said he, looking at the nose. 'A thousand pounds'--said I, twisting it to one side. 'Admirable!'--said he. 'A thousand pounds'--said I. 'You shall have them'-said he--'what a piece of Virtû!' So he paid me the money, and made a sketch of my nose. I took rooms in Jermyn street, sent his Majesty the ninety-ninth edition of the Nosology with a portrait of the author, and his Royal Highness of Touch-me-not invited me to dinner. We were all Lions and _Recherchés_. There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He said that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls--that somebody in the sixth heaven had seventy thousand heads and seventy thousand tongues--and that the earth was held up by a sky-blue cow with four hundred horns. There was Sir Positive Paradox. He said that all fools were philosophers, and all philosophers were fools.