But Tom would not be denied the fashionable peruke.

He had spent the best part of each day seated behind a screen in Cale's inner shop, listening in a species of fascination and amaze to the talk of the young dandies who daily resorted thither.

Cale told him that he would thus best learn something of the language and gossip of the day, and be better able to hold his own when he went abroad; and Tom already felt that he possessed command of a thousand new epithets and words, to say nothing of the meaningless oaths and blasphemies, which made a part of the stock in trade of every fashionable man's vocabulary.
And now he stood regarding himself with complaisant satisfaction, feeling that he could ruffle it with the best of them.

He had heard too much talk of periwigs not to feel resolved to wear one himself.
Unless he did so, he felt he should never take his place in the world of fashion.

His natural hair had therefore been cut close to his head, the peruke was fitted on, and fell in bushy curls to his shoulders.
Tom could not forbear a smile as he turned his head this way and that to judge of the effect.