urned on ye.'

He found a cheerful fire blazing in his own room, and dry clothing laid
out before it. He began to undress, casting his coat into one corner
of the room, with a gesture of exasperation, and his waistcoat into
another. He tugged at his bootlaces angrily, muttering to himself
meanwhile mere scraps of speech in which the words 'beer,' and 'waste,'
and 'guzzling beasts,' were audible. When he had stripped completely,
he gave himself a lusty towelling from head to foot, and then struggled
into the warm, dry raiment prepared for him. As at the completion of
his toilet he stood with a pair of stiff military brushes working at
his hair and whiskers, before a big cheval glass, he looked eminently
British for his day. The style is a little changing now, but the
thick-set sturdy figure, the full paunch, the blunt scowling features,
the cold grey eyes, the double chin, the firm yet sensual mouth, were
all expressive of his type. The suit of pilot cloth into which he had
changed gave him something of a seafaring look; but the high white
collar, the shining black satin stock, the heavy gold chain which
trailed across his waistcoat, and the clean-trimmed hirsute mutton-chop
on either side the heavy jowl combined to make him intensely respectable
to look at. He thrust his feet into a pair of wool-lined slippers, which
he had left toasting till the last moment before the fire, and took his
way downstairs, and along the passage which traversed the whole side of
the house. His face was drawn into a heavy frown as he thrust open the
door he came to, and he entered the room with a cough of magisterial
importance. A tall, gaunt man, with stooping shoulders, rose to meet
him, and the expression of Mr. Jervase's face changed as if by magic.
Something of such a change had taken place between his looking in on
the rustics assembled round his kitchen fire and his appearance amongst
them. But now it was even swifter, and more pronounced.

'Why, General Boswell!' he cried. 'This is indeed an unexpected honour.
I'm proud to see you, sir, beneath my 'umble roof. Jack Jervase wasn't
a very distinguished servant of Her Majesty. He never held the Queen's
commission, sir; but he fowt beneath his country's flag, and he'll
always feel it an honour to welcome a superior officer of the sister
arm.'

He said this with a laugh, and a roll of the head, as if to carry off
by his own geniality any sense of presumption which might appear to lurk