On his florid, debonnair countenance was stamped his character of bon-viveur.

In dress he was courtly in the extreme.

His doublet and haut-de-chausses were of wine-coloured velvet, richly laced, and he still affected the hanging sleeves of a fast-disappearing fashion.

Valuable lace filled the tops of his black boots, a valuable jewel glistened here and there upon his person, and one must needs have pronounced him a fop but for the strength and resoluteness of his bearing, and the long rapier that hung from his gold-embroidered baldrick.

Such in brief is a portrait of the man who now confronted me, his fine blue eyes fixed upon my face, wherein methinks he read but little, search though he might.
"M.