business out of Master Tugwell's hands; but without thinking twice about

it, all obeyed him with a speed that must have robbed them of a quantity

of rust. For although he was not in uniform, and bore no sword, his

dress was conspicuous, as he liked to have it, and his looks and deeds

kept suit with it. For he wore a blue coat (very badly made, with gilt

buttons and lappets too big for him), a waistcoat of dove-colored silk,

very long, coming over the place where his stomach should have been, and

white plush breeches, made while he was blockading Boulogne in 1801, and

therefore had scarcely any flesh upon his bones. Peace having fattened

him a little, these breeches had tightened upon him (as their way is

with a boy having six weeks' holiday); but still they could not make his

legs look big, though they showed them sharp and muscular. Below them

were brisk little sinewy calves in white silk hose, with a taper descent

to ankles as fine as a lady's, and insteps bright with large silver

buckles. Yet that which surpassed all the beauty of the clothes was the

vigor of the man inside them, who seemed to quicken and invigorate the

whole, even to the right sleeve, doubled up from the want of any arm

inside it. But the loss of the right arm, and the right eye also, seemed

to be of no account to the former owner, so hard did he work with the

residue of his body, and so much did he express with it.

His noble cocked hat was in its leathern box yet, for he was only just

come from Merton; but the broad felt he wore was looped up in front,

and displayed all the power of his countenance, or rather the vigor; for

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