Another was, that there were always, _at least_, half a dozen buttons off from his jacket, at all times and places, though his long-suffering mother lived in her work-basket.

A third, lay in the fact that he never walked.

He trotted, he cantered, he galloped; he progressed in jerks, in jumps, in somersets; he crawled up-stairs like a little Scotch plaid spider, on "all fours;" he came down stairs on the banisters, the balance of power lying between his steel buttons and the smooth varnish of the mahogany.

On several memorable occasions, he has narrowly escaped pitching head first into the hall lamp.

His favorite method of locomotion, however, consisted in a series of _thumps_, beginning with a gentle tread, and increasing in impetus by mathematical progression till it ended in a thunder-clap.