“I can’t say that I ever did,” said his friend, “but people look so different in their red coats to what they do in mufti, that there’s no such thing as recognising them unless you had a previous acquaintance with them.  The fields in Leicestershire are sometimes so large that it requires a residence to get anything like a general knowledge of the hunt, and, you know, Northamptonshire’s the country for my money, after Surrey, of course.”

“I don’t think he is a gentleman,” observed a thin sallow-complexioned young man, who, sitting on one side of the fire, had watched the stranger very narrowly without joining in the conversation.  “He gives me more the idea of a gentleman’s servant, acting the part of master, than anything else.”

Jorrocks. Oh! he is a gentleman, I’m sure—­besides, a servant wouldn’t travel in a carriage you know, and he talked about greasing the wheels and all that sort of thing, which showed he was familiar with the thing.

“That’s very true,” replied the youth—­“but a servant may travel in the rumble and pay for greasing the wheels all the same, or perhaps have to grease them himself.”

“Well, I should say he’s a foolish purse-proud sort of fellow,” observed another, “who has come into money unexpectedly, and who likes to be the cock of his party, and show off a little.”

Jorrocks. I’ll be bound to say you’re all wrong—­you are not fox-hunters, you see, or you would know that that is a way the sportsmen have—­we always make ourselves at home and agreeable—­have a word for everybody in fact, and no reserve; besides, you see, there was nothing gammonacious, as I calls it, about his toggery, no round-cut coats with sporting buttons, or coaches and four, or foxes for pins in his shirt.

“I don’t care for that,” replied the sallow youth, “dress him as you will, court suit, bag wig, and sword, you’ll make nothing better of him—­he’s a SNOB.”

Jorrocks, getting up, runs to the table on which the hats were standing, saying, “I wonder if he’s left his castor behind him?  I’ve always found a man’s hat will tell a good deal.  This is yours, Mr. York, with the loop to it, and here’s mine—­I always writes Golgotha in mine, which being interpreted, you know, means the place of a skull.  These are yours, I presume, gentlemen?” said he, taking up two others.  “Confound him, he’s taken his tile with him—­however, I’m quite positive he’s a gentleman—­lay you a hat apiece all round he is, if you like!”

“But how are we to prove it?” inquired the youth.

Jorrocks. Call in the waiter.

Youth. He may know nothing about him, and a waiter’s gentleman is always the man who pays him most.

Jorrocks. Trust the waiter for knowing something about him, and if he doesn’t, why, it’s only to send a purlite message upstairs, saying that two gentlemen in the coffee-room have bet a trifle that he is some nobleman—­Lord Maryborough, for instance,—­he’s a little chap—­but we must make haste, or the gentleman will be asleep.