“It soon came off, sir. The Girl wasn’t going to keep us waiting. A shy at a heap of stones took us off the road, and the next stride brought us into the fence. At the pace we were going, Mr. Naggett shot clean over my head into a wheat-field, and got up quite sober and none the worse, but he had to destroy the Girl; and as for me, why the trap, you see, unfortunately turned on to me, and I broke three ribs and my collar-bone, put out my wrist, lost two-and-seven-pence out of my breeches-pocket, and had a concussion of the brain. But it might have been worse! Here’s Mr. Naggett coming back to speak for himself, and I wish you good-evening, sir.”
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AS Tips took his departure, with a respectful inclination to myself, and a most polite bow to Miss Lushington, I observed that lady to adjust her shining locks, as it were mechanically, in obvious expectation of accustomed homage; and indeed ere I had sufficiently admired the attitude in which she performed this graceful movement, a fresh arrival swaggered into the bar, in as different a manner as possible from the modest entrance of his predecessor, Mr. Tips.
This gentleman, or perhaps the abbreviation _gent_ would convey more distinctly the exterior of the individual thus designated—this _gent_, then, was a personage of dashing appearance, dressed in the style which the present age denominates “loud,” and which presents, as far as the wearer’s ingenuity will admit, a combination of extreme splendour, with a decided tendency to the sports of the field. I have remarked such a peculiarity of costume in several individuals, less distinguished for their general good sense and respectability than for a strong and somewhat perverted inclination in favour of dog-fighting, pigeon-shooting, excessive trotting against time, the pitting of game-fowl in deadly conflict armed with artificial spurs, and even the patronage of those human combats in which such profound secrecy is always preserved, and to witness which it is indispensable to be possessed of that mysterious passport termed by _Bell’s Life_ “the office.”
Mr. Naggett, then, the well-known sporting butcher of the adjacent town of Waterborough, was turned out from top to toe exactly as a well-known sporting butcher ought to be. When he removed his low-crowned, close-shaved hat, and disclosed his abundance of crisp, short-curling flaxen hair, surmounting an extremely ruddy face with bright-blue eyes, good features, and the whitest of teeth, I could easily imagine that the respectful admiration of so well-looking an individual was an acceptable compliment even to Miss L. His fawn-coloured whiskers, of which he possessed a great abundance, were trained carefully to the very corners of his mouth, from which they descended in those seductive semicircles that are seen to their highest advantage in the commercial-room. Scorning the delusion of moustaches, Mr. Naggett rested a stronger claim to admiration on the brilliancy of his blue-satin neckcloth which, worn without shirt-collar, and ornamented by an enormous pin modelled to represent the head of the Champion of England in massive mosaic gold, irresistibly attracted the eye of the beholder, while it dazzled alike his fancy and his judgment. From the buttons of his waistcoat, scarlet cloth with a binding of gold thread, not unlike those of Lord M——’s footmen, or indeed of the gallant officers on the staff of the British army, depended a massive watch-chain in the form of a curb, life-size, if I may use the expression, and hung with many ornaments, of which a death’s head as big as a walnut, and a strike-a-light box, were perhaps the smallest and least conspicuous. Mr. Naggett’s coat was light-blue, very much off his person, and very short in the tails; his trousers were of drab, considerably tighter than is customary in these days of easy fitting; and his Wellington boots were thick, clumsy, and badly cleaned. He wore rings, but no gloves, and his hands were hardly so well washed as might have been desired.