A reference to Leech's drawings will show the flamboyant checked
"pegtop" trousers in which they delighted. Their principal
adornment lay in their immense "Dundreary" whiskers, usually at
least eight inches long. In a high wind these immensely long
whiskers blew back over their owners' shoulders in the most
comical fashion, and they must have been horribly inconvenient. I
determined early in life to affect, when grown-up, longer whiskers
than any one else--if possible down to my waist; but alas for
human aspirations! By the time that I had emerged from my
chrysalis stage, Dundreary whiskers had ceased to be the fashion;
added to which unkind Nature had given me a hairless face.
My uncle, old Lord Claud Hamilton, known in our family as "The
Dowager," adhered, to the day of his death, to the William IV.
style of dress. He wore an old-fashioned black-satin stock right
up to his chin, with white "gills" above, and was invariably seen
in a blue coat with brass buttons, and a buff waistcoat. My uncle
was one of the handsomest men in England, and had sat for nearly
forty years in Parliament.
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