The morning was raw, cold, and ungenial, as Layton took his outside seat
on the coach for Dublin. For sake of shelter, being but poorly provided
against ill weather, he had taken the seat behind the coachman, the
place beside him being reserved for a traveller who was to be taken up
outside the town. The individual in question was alluded to more than
once by the driver and the guard as "the Captain," and in the abundance
of fresh hay provided for his feet, and the care taken to keep his seat
dry, there were signs of a certain importance being attached to his
presence. As they gained the foot of a hill, where the road crossed a
small bridge, they found the stranger awaiting them, with his
carpet-bag; he had no other luggage, but in his own person showed
unmistakable evidence of being well prepared for a journey. He was an
elderly man, short, square, and thick-set, with a rosy, cheerful
countenance, and a bright, merry eye. As he took off his hat,
punctiliously returning the coachee's salute, he showed a round, bald
head, fringed around the base by a curly margin of rich brown hair. So
much Layton could mark,--all signs, as he read them, of a jovial
temperament and a healthy constitution; nor did the few words he uttered
detract from the impression: they were frank and cheerful, and their
tone rich and pleasing to the ear.

The stranger's first care on ascending to his place was to share a very
comfortable rug with his neighbor, the civility being done in a way that
would have made refusal almost impossible; his next move was to inquire
if Layton was a smoker, and, even before the answer, came the offer of
a most fragrant cigar. The courtesy of the offered snuff-box amongst
our grandfathers is now replaced by the polite proffer of a cigar, and,
simple as the act of attention is in itself, there are some men who are
perfect masters in the performance. The Captain was of this category;
and although Layton was a cold, proud, off-standing man, such was the
other's tact, that, before they had journeyed twenty miles in company,
an actual intimacy had sprung up between them.

There is no pleasanter companionship to the studious and reading man
than that of a man of life and the world, one whose experience,
drawn entirely from the actual game of life, is full of incident and
adventure. The Captain had travelled a great deal and seen much, and
there was about all his observations the stamp of a mind that had
learned to judge m