puffed, unwholesome. He was dressed in a gray-flannel gown and short
breeches, the stockings wrinkled and distained, the feet in slippers.
The stomach was that of a portly man, the legs were those of a skeleton;
the cheeks full and swollen, like a ploughboy's, but livid, bespeckled,
of a dull lead-colour, like a patient in the dropsy. The head, covered
in patches with thin, yellowish hair, gave some promise of intellect, for
the forehead was high, and appeared still more so from partial baldness;
the eyes, embedded in fat and wrinkled skin, were small and lustreless,
but they still had that acute look which education and ability
communicate to the human orb; the mouth most showed the animal,--full-
lipped, coarse, and sensual; while behind one of two great ears stuck a
pen.

You see before you, then, this slatternly figure,--slipshod, half-
clothed, with a sort of shabby demi-gentility about it, half ragamuffin,
half clerk; while in strong contrast appeared the new-comer, scrupulously
neat, new, with bright black-satin stock, coat cut jauntily to the waist,
varnished boots, kid gloves, and trim mustache.

Behind this sleek and comely personage, on knock-knees, in torn shirt
open at the throat, with apathetic, listless, unlighted face, stood the
lean and gawky Beck.

"Set a chair for the gentleman," said the inmate of the chamber to Beck,
with a dignified wave of the hand.

"How do you do, Mr.--Mr.--humph--Jason? How do you do? Always smart and
blooming; the world thrives with you."

"The world is a farm that thrives with all who till it properly,