FISH OUT OF WATER. 99 



Well, on the evening in question we are all seated 

 in the cheerful coffee-room at Crook, anxiously waiting 

 the advent of our dinner, when two "objects," about the 

 last to be looked for here, are observed on the highroad, 

 slowly sauntering hitherward. " Good gracious ! " cries 

 Dunn, "two swells, as I live." It was true, they ze/^^r^ swells, 

 of the first water, and as our dinner comes in they enter 

 the room. They have velvet cut-away coats, faultless 

 trousers, patent boots, spotless linen, sparkling rings, 

 whiskers, and mustachios — the latter trimmed to the 

 utmost nicety — and hair carefully arranged with a straight, 

 clear parting running from the middle of the forehead 

 to the back of the neck. One is dark and the other 

 fair, but both have the touch-me-not air which, as a 

 well-known and illustrious author says, " is more easily 

 imagined than described." How intolerably mean and 

 shabby did my rough frieze jacket and my long stock- 

 ings feel ! How I hid the latter away, like the mean 

 sneak I felt myself to be, at the sight of those faultless 

 breeches ! All of us seemed, like Adam and Eve, to have 

 become suddenly aware of our nakedness; but we soon 

 rallied, and after the soup had disappeared, brave old 

 Selborne even ventured a remark on the weather, and 

 succeeded in getting a somewhat indignant reply from 

 one of the two whiskerandos. Nothing daunted, he plied 

 them again, and by the pastry came had made such 

 progress, that he positively asked them if they had come 

 there " a-fishing." At this question I blushed my deepest 

 red, Dunn put his napkin to his face, and Black opened 

 eyes and mouth in amazement. Fancy these exquisites 



