‘Here!’ replied a meek voice from behind; upon which there was an elbowing through the crowd, and presently a most respectable, rosy-gilled, grey-haired, hawbuck-looking man, attired in a new brown cutaway, with bright buttons and a velvet collar, with a buff waistcoat, came twirling an ash-stick in one hand, and fumbling the silver in his drab trousers’ pocket with the other, in front of the bystanders.

’Oh! ‘ere he is!’ exclaimed Bragg, appealing to the stranger with a hasty ‘You know Captain Boville, don’t you?’

‘Why, now, as to the matter of that,’ replied the gentleman, gathering all the loose silver up into his hand and speaking very slowly, just as a country gentleman, who has all the live-long day to do nothing in, may be supposed to speak—­’ Why, now, as to the matter of that,’ said he, eyeing Pacey intently, and beginning to drop the silver slowly as he spoke, ’I can’t say that I’ve any very ’ticklar ’quaintance with the captin.  I knows him, in course, just as one knows a neighbour’s son.  The captin’s a good deal younger nor me,’ continued he, raising his new eight-and-sixpenny Parisian, as if to show his sandy grey hair.  ’I’m a’most sixty; and he, I dare say, is little more nor twenty,’ dropping a half-crown as he said it.  ’But the captin’s a nice young gent—­a nice young gent, without any blandishment, I should say; and that’s more nor one can say of all young gents nowadays,’ said Buckram, looking at Pacey as he spoke, and dropping two consecutive half-crowns.

‘Why, but you live near him, don’t you?’ interrupted Bragg.

‘Near him,’ repeated Buckram, feeling his well-shaven chin thoughtfully.  ‘Why, yes—­that’s to say, near his dad.  The fact is,’ continued he, ’I’ve a little independence of my own,’ dropping a heavy five-shilling piece as he said it,’ and his father—­old Bo, as I call him—­adjoins me; and if either of us ’appen to have a battue, or a ’aunch of wenzun, and a few friends, we inwite each other, and wicey wersey, you know,’ letting off a lot of shillings and sixpences.  And just at the moment the blind fiddler struck up ‘The Devil among the Tailors,’ when the shouts and laughter of the mob closed the scene.

And now gentlemen, who heretofore have shown no more of the jockey than Cinderella’s feet in the early part of the pantomime disclose of her ball attire, suddenly cast off the pea-jackets and bearskin wraps, and shawls and overcoats of winter, and shine forth in all the silken flutter of summer heat.

We know of no more humiliating sight than misshapen gentlemen playing at jockeys.  Playing at soldiers is bad enough, but playing at jockeys is infinitely worse—­above all, playing at steeple-chase jockeys, combining, as they generally do, all the worst features of the hunting-field and racecourse—­unsympathizing boots and breeches, dirty jackets that never fit, and caps that won’t keep on.  What a farce to see the great bulky fellows go to scale with their saddles strapped to their backs, as if to illustrate the impossibility of putting a round of beef upon a pudding plate!