CHAPTER I.ABOVE BUTTONS.
Long after the hours when tradesmen are in the habit of commencing business, the shutters of a certain shop in the town of Lymport-on-the-Sea remained significantly closed, and it became known that death had taken Mr.Melchisedec Harrington, and struck one off the list of living tailors.

The demise of a respectable member of this class does not ordinarily create a profound sensation.

He dies, and his equals debate who is to be his successor: while the rest of them who have come in contact with him, very probably hear nothing of his great launch and final adieu till the winding up of cash-accounts; on which occasions we may augur that he is not often blessed by one or other of the two great parties who subdivide this universe.

In the case of Mr.Melchisedec it was otherwise.

This had been a grand man, despite his calling, and in the teeth of opprobrious epithets against his craft.