The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his door; then, seeming to make sure of his identity from the action, he spoke:
“I beg your pardon,” he said, coming from the window with a frank and smiling air, and a prepossessing address; “the beans.”
Neville was quite at a loss.
“Runners,” said the visitor. “Scarlet. Next door at the back.”
“O,” returned Neville. “And the mignonette and wall-flower?”
“The same,” said the visitor.
“Pray walk in.”
“Thank you.”
Neville lighted his candles, and the visitor sat down. A handsome gentleman, with a young face, but with an older figure in its robustness and its breadth of shoulder; say a man of eight-and-twenty, or at the utmost thirty; so extremely sunburnt that the contrast between his brown visage and the white forehead shaded out of doors by his hat, and the glimpses of white throat below the neckerchief, would have been almost ludicrous but for his broad temples, bright blue eyes, clustering brown hair, and laughing teeth.
“I have noticed,” said he; “—my name is Tartar.”