es, with a most uncommon degree
of knowingness in their expression, shone forth; and a thin and most
accurately-curled moustache graced his upper lip and gave a character of
Vandykism to his features, which were really handsome. In person he was
some six feet two, gracefully but strongly built; his costume, without
anything approaching conceit, was the perfection of fashionable
attire--even to his gloves there was nothing which D'Orsay could have
criticised; while his walk was the very type of that mode of
progression which is only learned thoroughly by a daily stroll down
St. Jameses-street, and the frequent practice of passing to and from
Crockford's, at all hours of the day and night.

The expression of his features was something so striking, I cannot help
noting it: there was a jauntiness, an ease, no smirking, half-bred,
self-satisfied look, such as a London linendraper might wear on his trip
to Margate; but a consummate sense of his own personal attractions and
great natural advantages, had given a character to his features which
seemed to say--it's quite clear there's no coming up to _me_: don't
try it:--_nascitur non fit_. His very voice implied it. The veriest
commonplace fell from him with a look, a smile, a gesture, a something
or other that made it tell; and men repeated his sayings without
knowing, that his was a liquor, that was lost in decanting. The way he
scanned the passengers, and it was done in a second, was the practised
observance of one, who reads character at a glance. Over the Cockneys,
and they were numerous, his eyes merely passed without bestowing any
portion of attention; while to the lady part of the company his look was
one of triumphant satisfaction, such as Louis XIV. might have bestowed
when he gazed at the thousands in the garden of Versailles, and
exclaimed, "_Oui! ces sont mes sujets_." Such was the Honourable Jack
Smallbranes, younger son of a peer, ex-captain in the Life Guards,
winner of the Derby, but now the cleared-out man of fashion flying to
the Continent to escape from the Fleet, and cautiously coming aboard in
disguise below Gravesend, to escape the bore of a bailiff, and what he
called the horror of bills "detested."

We read a great deal about Cincinnatus cultivating his cabbages, and we
hear of Washington's retirement when the active period of his career
had passed over, and a hundred similar instances are quoted for our
admiration, of men, who could throw themselves at