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Of course there was no further mention of angling. Our new acquaintance had quite subjects enough without touching upon that. In eating, for instance, he might fairly be called learned. Mrs. Dunbar’s cuisine was excellent, and he not only praised the different dishes in a most scientific and edifying manner, but volunteered a recipe for certain little mutton pies, the fashion of the season. In drinking he was equally at home. Edward had produced his father’s choicest hermitage and lachryma, and he seemed to me to know literally by heart all the most celebrated vintages, and to have made pilgrimages to the most famous vineyards all over Europe. He talked to Helen Dunbar, a musical young lady, of Grisi and Malibran; to her sister Caroline, a literary enthusiast, of the poems of the year, “Ion,” and “Paracelsus;” to me he spoke of geraniums; and to my father of politics–contriving to conciliate both parties, (for there were Whigs and Tories in the room,) by dubbing himself a liberal Conservative. In short, he played his part of Man of the World perfectly to his own satisfaction, and would have passed with the whole family for the very model of all London visitors, had he not unfortunately nodded over certain verses which he had flattered Miss Caroline into producing, and fallen fast asleep during her sister’s cavatina; and if his conversation, however easy and smooth, had not been felt to be upon the whole rather vapid and prosy. “Just exactly,” said young Edward Dunbar, who, in the migration transit between Eton, which he had left at Easter, and Oxford, which he was to enter at Michaelmas, was plentifully imbued with the aristocratic prejudices common to each of those venerable seats of learning “just exactly what in the fitness of things the talk of a Mr. Thompson ought to be.”

The next afternoon I happened to be engaged to the Lady Margaret Gore, another pleasant neighbour, to drink tea; a convenient fashion, which saves time and trouble, and is much followed in these parts during the summer months. A little after eight I made my appearance in her saloon, which, contrary to her usual polite attention, I found empty. In the course of a few minutes she entered, and apologised for her momentary absence, as having been caused by a London gentleman on a visit at the house, who arriving the evening before, had spent all that morning at the side of Loddon fishing, (where, by the way, observed her ladyship, he had caught nothing,) and had kept them waiting dinner. “He is a very old friend of ours,” added Lady Margaret; “Mr. Thompson, of Harley Street, whose daughter lately married Mr. Browne of Gloucester Place,” and, with the word, entered Mr. Thompson in his own proper person.

Was it or was it not the Mr. Thompson of the day before? Yes! no!—- No! yes! It would have been, only that it could not be. The alibi was too clearly proved: Lady Margaret had spent the preceding evening with her Mr. Thompson in one place, and I myself with my Mr. Thompson in another. Different they must be, but oh, how alike! I am too short-sighted to be cognizant of each separate feature. But there it was, the same common height and common size, and common physiognomy, wigged, whiskered, and perfumed to a hair! The self-same sober magnificence of dress, the same cut and colour of coat, the same waistcoat of brocade brode–of a surety they must have employed one identical tailor, and one measure had served for both! Chains, studs, brooches, rings–even the eye-glass spectacles were there. Had he (this he) stolen them? Or did the Thompsons use them alternately, upon the principle of ride and tie?

In conversation the similarity was even more striking–safe, civil, prosy, dosy, and yet not without a certain small pretension. The Mr. Thompson of Friday talked as his predecessor of Thursday had done, of Malibran and Grisi, “Paracelsus” and “Ion,” politics and geraniums. He alluded to a recipe (doubtless the famous recipe for mutton pies) which he had promised to write out for the benefit of the housekeeper, and would beyond all question have dosed over one young lady’s verses, and fallen asleep to another’s singing, if there had happened to be such narcotics as music and poetry in dear Lady Margaret’s drawing-room. Mind and body, the two Mr. Thompsons were as alike as two peas, as two drops of water, as two Emperor-of-Morocco butterflies, as two death’s-head moths. Could they have been twin brothers, like the Dromios of the old drama? or was the vicinity of the Regent’s Park peopled with Cockney anglers–Thompsons whose daughters had married Brownes?

The resemblance haunted me all night. I dreamt of Brownes and Thompsons, and to freshen my fancy and sweep away the shapes by which I was beset, I resolved to take a drive. Accordingly, I ordered my little phaeton, and, perplexed and silent, bent my way to call upon my fair friend, Miss Mortimer. Arriving at Queen’s-bridge Cottage, I was met in the rose-covered porch by the fair Frances. “Come this way, if you please,” said she, advancing towards the dining-room; “we are late at luncheon to-day. My friend, Mrs. Browne, and her father, Mr. Thompson, our old neighbours when we lived in Welbeck Street, have been here for this week past, and he is so fond of fishing that he will scarcely leave the river even to take his meals, although for aught I can hear he never gets so much as a bite.”

As she ceased to speak, we entered: and another Mr. Thompson–another, yet the same, stood before me. It was not yet four o’clock in the day, therefore of course the dress-coat and the brocade waistcoat were wanting; but there was the man himself, Thompson the third, wigged, whiskered, and eye-glassed, just as Thompson the first might have tumbled into the water at General Dunbar’s, or Thompson the second have stood waiting for a nibble at Lady Margaret’s. There he sat evidently preparing to do the agreeable, to talk of music and of poetry, of Grisi and Malibran, of “Ion” and “Paracelsus,” to profess himself a liberal Conservative, to give recipes for pates, and to fall asleep over albums. It was quite clear that he was about to make this display of his conversational abilities; but I could not stand it. Nervous and mystified as the poor Frenchman in the memorable story of “Monsieur Tonson,” I instinctively followed his example, and fairly fled the field.