“He! he! how very good! you are so pleasant, Plimmins.”
While these strictures on his appearance were still going on, Philip had already ascended the roof of the coach; and, waving his hand, with the condescension of old times, to his future master, was carried away by the “Express” in a whirlwind of dust.
“A very warm evening, sir,” said a passenger seated at his right; puffing, while he spoke, from a short German pipe, a volume of smoke in Philip’s face.
“Very warm. Be so good as to smoke into the face of the gentleman on the other side of you,” returned Philip, petulantly.
“Ho, ho!” replied the passenger, with a loud, powerful laugh—the laugh of a strong man. “You don’t take to the pipe yet; you will by and by, when you have known the cares and anxieties that I have gone through. A pipe!—it is a great soother!—a pleasant comforter! Blue devils fly before its honest breath! It ripens the brain—it opens the heart; and the man who smokes thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan!”
Roused from his reverie by this quaint and unexpected declamation, Philip turned his quick glance at his neighbour. He saw a man of great bulk and immense physical power—broad-shouldered—deep-chested—not corpulent, but taking the same girth from bone and muscle that a corpulent man does from flesh. He wore a blue coat—frogged, braided, and buttoned to the throat. A broad-brimmed straw hat, set on one side, gave a jaunty appearance to a countenance which, notwithstanding its jovial complexion and smiling mouth, had, in repose, a bold and decided character. It was a face well suited to the frame, inasmuch as it betokened a mind capable of wielding and mastering the brute physical force of body;—light eyes of piercing intelligence; rough, but resolute and striking features, and a jaw of iron. There was thought, there was power, there was passion in the shaggy brow, the deep-ploughed lines, the dilated, nostril and the restless play of the lips. Philip looked hard and grave, and the man returned his look.
“What do you think of me, young gentleman?” asked the passenger, as he replaced the pipe in his mouth. “I am a fine-looking man, am I not?”
“You seem a strange one.”
“Strange!—Ay, I puzzle you, as I have done, and shall do, many. You cannot read me as easily as I can read you. Come, shall I guess at your character and circumstances? You are a gentleman, or something like it, by birth;—that the tone of your voice tells me. You are poor, devilish poor;—that the hole in your coat assures me. You are proud, fiery, discontented, and unhappy;—all that I see in your face. It was because I saw those signs that I spoke to you. I volunteer no acquaintance with the happy.”
“I dare say not; for if you know all the unhappy you must have a sufficiently large acquaintance,” returned Philip.