The door was soon opened for the admission of dinner.  “I don’t know how it is with you, gentlemen,” said Harley’s new acquaintance, “but I am afraid I shall not be able to get down a morsel at this horrid mechanical hour of dining.”  He sat down, however, and did not show any want of appetite by his eating.  He took upon him the carving of the meat, and criticised the goodness of the pudding, and when the tablecloth was removed proposed calling for some punch, which was readily agreed to.

While the punch lasted the conversation was wholly engrossed by this young gentleman, who told a great many “immensely comical stories” and “confounded smart things,” as he termed them.  At last the man in the jack-boots, who turned out to be a grazier, pulling out a watch of very unusual size, said that he had an appointment.  And the young gentleman discovered that he was already late for an appointment.

When the grazier and he were gone, Harley turned to the remaining personage, and asked him if he knew that young gentleman.  “A gentleman!” said he.  “I knew him, some years ago, in the quality of a footman.  But some of the great folks to whom he has been serviceable had him made a ganger.  And he has the assurance to pretend an acquaintance with men of quality.  The impudent dog!  With a few shillings in his pocket, he will talk three times as much as my friend Mundy, the grazier there, who is worth nine thousand if he’s worth a farthing.  But I know the rascal, and despise him as he deserves!”

Harley began to despise him, too, but he corrected himself by reflecting that he was perhaps as well entertained, and instructed, too, by this same ganger, as he should have been by such a man of fashion as he had thought proper to personate.

III.—­Harley’s Success with the Baronet

The card he received was in the politest style in which disappointment could be communicated.  The baronet “was under a necessity of giving up his application for Mr. Harley, as he was informed that the lease was engaged for a gentleman who had long served his majesty in another capacity, and whose merit had entitled him to the first lucrative thing that should be vacant.”  Even Harley could not murmur at such a disposal.  “Perhaps,” said he to himself, “some war-worn officer, who had been neglected from reasons which merited the highest advancement; whose honour could not stoop to solicit the preferment he deserved; perhaps, with a family taught the principles of delicacy without the means of supporting it; a wife and children—­gracious heaven!—­whom my wishes would have deprived of bread—!”

He was interrupted in his reverie by someone tapping him on the shoulder, and on turning round, he discovered it to be the very man who had recently explained to him the condition of his gay companion.

“I believe we are fellows in disappointment,” said he.  Harley started, and said that he was at a loss to understand him.