As Mr. Jeremiah stood looking out of the window for the purpose of whiling away a tedious forenoon, it first struck his mind--upon the sight of a number of men dressed very differently from himself--that his wardrobe would scarcely match with the festal splendour of the _fete_ at which he was to be present in the evening. Even if it had been possible to overlook the tarnished lustre of his coat, not much embellished by its late watery trials upon the golden sow, yet he could not possibly make his appearance in a surtout. He sent therefore to one tailor after another: but all assured him that they had their hands much too full of business to undertake the conversion of his surtout into a dress coat against the evening; still less could they undertake to make a new one. Just as vainly did he look about for shoes: many were on sale; but none of them with premises spacious enough to accommodate his very respectable feet. All this put him into no little perplexity. True it was, that Mrs. Sweetbread had spontaneously thrown open to his inspection the wardrobe of her deceased husband. But even _he_ had contrived to go through this world in shoes of considerably smaller dimensions than Mr. Jeremiah demanded. And from a pretty large choice of coats there was not one which he could turn to account. For, to say nothing of their being one and all too short by a good half ell, even in the very best of them he looked precisely as that man looks who has lately slaughtered a hog, or as that man looks who designs to slaughter a hog. Now, then, when all his plans for meeting the exigencies of his case had turned out abortive, suddenly a bold idea struck him. In a sort of inspiration he seized a pair of scissors, for the purpose of converting with his own untutored hand of genius his pea-green surtout into a pea-green frock. This operation having, in his own judgment, succeeded to a marvel, he no longer hesitated to cut out a pair of ball shoes from his neat's-leather 'field-pieces.' Whatever equipments were still wanting could be had for money, with the exception of a shirt; and, as to _that_, the wedding shirt of the late Mr. Sweetbread would answer the purpose very passably. What provoked our hero most of all were the new patent shoe-buckles, the fine points of which would not take firm hold of the coarse leather shoes, but on every bold step burst asunder--so that he was obliged to keep his eye warily upon them, and in consideration of their tender condition, to set his feet down to the ground very gently. The hostess had just sunk pretty deep into her customary failing of intoxication, when he went to her and asked how he looked in his gala dress. 'Look!' said she; 'why, like a king baked in gingerbread. Ah! now, such a man as you is the man for my money:--stout, and resolute, and active, and a man that----' 'Basta! sufficit, my dear.'