He was as courteous, as persuasive, as blandly dignified as ever.

He carried his head as high without a shirt-collar as ever he had carried it with one.
The threadbare black handkerchief round his neck was perfectly tied; his rotten old shoes were neatly blacked; he might have compared chins, in the matter of smooth shaving, with the highest church dignitary in York.
Time, change, and poverty had all attacked the captain together, and had all failed alike to get him down on the ground.

He paced the streets of York, a man superior to clothes and circumstances--his vagabond varnish as bright on him as ever.
Arrived at the bridge, Captain Wragge stopped and looked idly over the parapet at the barges in the river.

It was plainly evident that he had no particular destination to reach and nothing whatever to do.

While he was still loitering, the clock of York Minster chimed the half-hour past five.