This costume signified that Mr.Gammon felt at leisure, contrasting as strongly as possible with the garb in which he was wont to go about his ordinary business--that of commercial traveller.

He had a liking for dogs, and kept a number of them in the back premises of an inn at Dulwich, whither he usually repaired on Sundays.

When at Dulwich, Mr.Gammon fancied himself in completely rural seclusion; it seemed to him that he had shaken off the dust of cities, that he was far from the clamour of the crowd, amid peace and simplicity; hence his rustic attire, in which he was fond of being photographed with dogs about him.

A true-born child of town, he would have found the real country quite unendurable; in his doggy rambles about Dulwich he always preferred a northerly direction, and was never so happy as when sitting in the inn-parlour amid a group of friends whose voices rang the purest Cockney.

Even in his business he disliked engagements which took him far from London; his "speciality" (as he would have said) was town travel, and few men had had more varied experience in that region of enterprise.
"I'm going to have a look at the bow-wows," he replied to Mrs.Bubb.
"Polly won't come with me; unkind of her, ain't it ?" "Mr.Gammon," remarked the young lady with a severe glance, "I'll thank you not to be so familiar with my name.