My next care was to find Dan. I experienced but little 

 •difficulty in doing this, as there apparently was only one 

 Dan in the place. I came upon that individual in his 

 own house, just as he was taking his last cup of tea with. 

 ^' summut in it," preparatory to going out punting for the 

 night. As, perhaps, not everyone of my readers has had 

 the opportunity of seeing a Poole gunner attired for work, 

 I will endeavour to give a slight sketch of Dan " as he 

 appeared in ball costume." In the first place, he was a 

 man of at least fifty years of age, short and stout ; his 

 face was the colour of underdone boiled beef, and crossed 

 and recrossed like a railway map ; he had grizzled hair, 

 and an eye like a panther; Dan frequently assured me he 

 could see birds about as well in the night as in the day. 

 But his dress ! If any of the " swell" sporting tailors or 

 their customers could have seen it, they would have 

 fainted ! On his head he mounted a red woollen night- 

 cap, and over that a thick fur Cossack-looking afiair, with 

 flaps for the ears, and secured under his chin by a piece 

 of string. Next his body (I had the pleasure of seeing 

 Dan make his toilet) he drew on a thick blue fisherman^s 

 guernsey ; over that he donned a kind of sack with no 

 arms, made of a sort of rough, shaggy material a quarter of 

 an inch thick ; and over this a short wadded frock reach- 

 ing to his hips, and which must have weighed at least ten 

 pounds ; the sleeves of this latter garment fitted close to 

 his arms, and were not wadded further than the armpits. 

 How many drawers, flannels, &c., he had under his 

 trousers of thick flushing I can^t say, but I know that 

 after he had put on a pretty sizable pair of boots, he drew 

 on over them some thick-woven woollen stockings reach - 

 to his thighs, and over them again a pair of tarpaulin - 

 legged brogues. His ^^ old ^ooman" attended on Dan at 



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