In the inn kitchen was a long, lean, characteristic-looking fellow of perhaps forty, dressed in black.

He sat on a settle by the fireside, smoking a long pipe, such as they call a yard of clay.

His hat and wig were hanged upon the knob behind him, his head as bald as a bladder of lard, and his expression very shrewd, cantankerous, and inquisitive.

He seemed to value himself above his company, to give himself the airs of a man of the world among that rustic herd; which was often no more than his due; being, as I afterwards discovered, an attorney's clerk.

I took upon myself the more ungrateful part of arriving last; and by the time I entered on the scene the Major was already served at a side table.