If you excluded two or three Englishmen who spoke with an accent suggestive of an effeminate character, and had a fearsome habit of walking on the Sabbath, and poor "Moossy," the French master at the Seminary, who was a quantity not worth considering, the foreign element in Muirtown during the classical days consisted of the Count. He never claimed to be a Count, and used at first to deprecate the title, but he declined the honour of our title with so much dignity that it seemed only to prove his right, and by and by he answered to the name with simply a slight wave of his hand which he meant for deprecation, but which came to be considered a polite acknowledgement. His real name was not known in Muirtown--not because he had not given it, but because it could not be pronounced, being largely composed of x's and k's, with an irritating parsimony of vowels. We had every opportunity of learning to spell it, if we could not pronounce it, for it was one of the Count's foreign ways to carry a card-case in his ticket-pocket, and on being introduced to an inhabitant of Muirtown to offer his card with the right hand while he took off his hat with the left, and bowed almost to a right angle. Upon those occasions a solid man like Bailie MacFarlane would take hold of the card cautiously, not knowing whether so unholy a name might not go off and shatter his hand; and during the Count's obeisance, which lasted for several seconds, the Bailie regarded him with grave disapproval. The mind of Muirtown, during this performance of the Count's, used to be divided between regret that any human being should condescend to such tricks, and profound thankfulness that Muirtown was not part of a foreign country where people were brought up with the manners of poodles. Our pity for foreigners was nourished by the manner of the Count's dress, which would have been a commonplace on a _boulevard_, but astounded Muirtown on its first appearance, and always lent an element of piquant interest to our streets. His perfectly brushed hat, broadish in the brim and curled at the sides, which he wore at the faintest possible angle, down to his patent leather boots, which it was supposed he obtained in Paris, and wore out at the rate of a pair a month--all was unique and wonderful, but it was his frock-coat which stimulated conversation. It was so tight and fitted so perfectly, revealing the outlines of his slender form, and there was such an indecent absence of waist--waist was a strong point with Muirtown men, and in the case of persons who had risen to office, like the Provost, used to run to fifty inches--that a report went round the town that the Count was a woman. This speculation was confirmed rather than refuted by the fact that the Count smoked cigarettes, which he made with Satanic ingenuity while you were looking at him, and that he gave a display of fencing with the best swordsman of a Dragoon regiment in the barracks,