o be English. They were both
young, fresh-looking, and well favored; that stamp of half-modesty,
half-boldness, so essentially British, was on them, and, notwithstanding
the entrance of a stranger, they talked away in their native language
with all the fearless security your genuine John Bull feels that no
confounded foreigner can understand him. It is but fair to admit that
Grog's beard and moustaches, his frogged and braided grass-green coat,
and his blue spectacles made him resemble anything on earth rather than
a subject of Queen Victoria.

In the mere glance Grog bestowed upon them as he passed, he saw the
class to which they pertained,--young Oxford or Cambridge men, "out"
for their vacation,--an order for which he ever entertained a supreme
contempt. He despised their mock shrewdness, their assumed craft, and
that affectation of being "fast men," which in reality never soared
above running up a bill at the pastrycook's, thrashing a townsman, and
giving a stunning wine-party at their rooms. To what benefit could such
miniature vices be turned? It was only "punting" with the Evil One, and
Grog thought so and avoided them.

Deep in the "mysterious gutturals" of the "Cologne Gazette," or busily
discussing his carbonadoed beefsteak, Davis gave no heed to the
bald, disjointed chat of his neighbors; broken phrases reached him
at intervals about proctors and the "little go," the stroke oar of
Brazennose, or some new celebrity of the ballet, when suddenly the name
of Annesley Beecher startled him. He now listened attentively, and heard
one of them relating to the other that while waiting for his arrival
at Aix la-Chapelle, he had devoted himself to watching Beecher and "the
stunning girl" that was with him. It appeared from what he said that all
Aix was wildly excited by curiosity on her account. That she was neither
wife, sister, nor mistress, none disputed. Who was she, then? or what
could be the explanation of that mysterious companionship? "You should
have seen her at the rooms," continued the narrator; "she used to make
her appearance about eleven--rarely before--dressed with a magnificence
that threw all the little German royalties into the shade,--such lace
and ornaments! They said, of course, it was all false; I can only tell
you that old Lady Bamouth got beside her one night just to examine her
scarf, and she proclaimed it real Brussels, and worth I can't say how
much; and for the recovery of an opal that fell o