But just as we were quitting the field we met two rather odd-looking persons entering it, young-old persons they seemed, who might own to any age or any occupation.

Their dress, especially that of the younger, amused us by its queer mixture of fashionableness and homeliness, such as grey ribbed stockings and shining paste shoe-buckles, rusty velvet small-clothes and a coatee of blue cloth.
But the wearer carried off this anomalous costume with an easy, condescending air, full of pleasantness, humour, and grace.
"Sir," said he, approaching John Halifax with a bow that I feel sure the "first gentleman of his day," as loyal folk then entitled the Prince Regent, could not have surpassed--"Sir, will you favour me by informing us how far it is to Coltham ?" "Ten miles, and the stage will pass here in three hours." "Thank you; at present I have little to do with the--at least with THAT stage.

Young gentlemen, excuse our continuing our dessert, in fact, I may say our dinner.

Are you connoisseurs in turnips ?" He offered us--with a polite gesture--one of the "swedes" he was munching.

I declined; but John, out of a deeper delicacy than I could boast, accepted it.
"One might dine worse," he said; "I have done, sometimes." "It was a whim of mine, sir.