calendars, An enormous fire-place was crowded with men of all ages, I had
almost said, of all ranks; but, however various they might appear in
their mien and attire, they were wholly of the patrician order. One
thing, however, in this room, belied its similitude to the apartment of a
club, viz., a number of dogs, that lay in scattered groups upon the
floor. Before the windows were several horses, in body-cloths, led or
rode to exercise upon a plain in the park, levelled as smooth as a
bowling-green at Putney; and stationed at an oriel window, in earnest
attention to the scene without, were two men; the tallest of these was
Lord Chester. There was a stiffness and inelegance in his address which
prepossessed me strongly against him. "Les manieres que l'on neglige
comme de petites choses, sont souvent ce qui fait que les hommes decident
de vous en bien ou en mal."

[The manners which on negects as trifles, are often precisely that
by which men decide on you favourably of the reverse.]

I had long since, when I was at the University, been introduced to Lord
Chester; but I had quite forgotten his person, and he the very
circumstance. I said, in a low tone, that I was the bearer of a letter of
some importance from our mutual friend, Lord Dawton, and that I should
request the honour of a private interview at Lord Chester's first
convenience.

His lordship bowed, with an odd mixture of the civility of a jockey and
the hauteur of a head groom of the stud, and led the way to a small
apartment, which I afterwards discovered he called his own. (I never
could make out, by the way, why, in England, the very worst room in the
house is always appropriated to the master of it, and dignified by the
appellation of "the gentleman's own.") I gave the Newmarket grandee the