one, in which he enacted as many characters, at least made as many
different appearances, as the late Mr. Mathews used to do in his celebrated
'At Homes.' One day Peter would be seen ducking under the mews' entrance in
one of those greasy, painfully well-brushed hats, the certain precursors of
soiled linen and seedy, most seedy-covered buttoned coats, that would
puzzle a conjuror to say whether they were black, or grey, or olive, or
invisible green turned visible brown. Then another day he might be seen in
old Mrs. Gadabout's sky-blue livery, with a tarnished, gold-laced hat,
nodding over his nose; and on a third he would shine forth in Mrs.
Major-General Flareup's cockaded one, with a worsted shoulder-knot, and a
much over-daubed light drab livery coat, with crimson inexpressibles, so
tight as to astonish a beholder how he ever got into them. Humiliation,
however, has its limits as well as other things; and Peter having been
invited to descend from his box--alas! a regular country patent leather
one, and invest himself in a Quaker-collared blue coat, with a red vest,
and a pair of blue trousers with a broad red stripe down the sides, to
drive the Honourable old Miss Wrinkleton, of Harley Street, to Court in a
'one oss pianoforte-case,' as he called a Clarence, he could stand it no
longer, and, chucking the nether garments into the fire, he rushed
frantically up the area-steps, mounted his box, and quilted the old
crocodile of a horse all the way home, accompanying each cut with an
imprecation such as '_me_ make a guy of myself!' (whip) '_me_ put on sich
things!' (whip, whip) '_me_ drive down Sin Jimses-street!' (whip, whip,
whip), '_I'd_ see her ---- fust!' (whip, whip, whip), cutting at the old
horse just as if he was laying it into Miss Wrinkleton, so that by the time
he got home he had established a considerable lather on the old nag, which
his master resenting a row ensued, the sequel of which may readily be
imagined. After assisting Mrs. Clearstarch, the Kilburn laundress, in
getting in and taking out her washing, for a few weeks, chance at last
landed him at Mr. Benjamin Buckram's, from whence he is now about to be