"Ever see the Lord Mayor a-ridin' in 'is goold coach, sir?" pursued the old man.
"Yes," said I.
"Ever speak to 'im?"
"Why, no."
"Ah well, I once knowed a man as spoke to the Lord Mayor o' Lunnon's coachman—but 'e's dead, took the smallpox the year arterwards an' died, 'e did."
At this juncture the door was thrown noisily open, and two gentlemen entered. The first was a very tall man with black hair that curled beneath his hat-brim, and so luxuriant a growth of whisker that it left little of his florid countenance exposed. The second was more slightly built, with a pale, hairless face, wherein were set two small, very bright eyes, rather close together, separated by a high, thin nose with nostrils that worked and quivered when he spoke, a face whose most potent feature was the mouth, coarse and red, with a somewhat protuberant under lip, yet supported by a square, determined chin below—a sensual mouth with more than a suspicion of cruelty lurking in its full curves, and the big teeth which gleamed white and serrated when he laughed. Indeed, the whole aspect of the man filled me with an instinctive disgust.
They were dressed in that mixture of ultra-fashionable and horsey styles peculiar to the "Corinthian," or "Buck" of the period, and there was in their air an overbearing yet lazy insolence towards all and sundry that greatly annoyed me.
"Fifteen thousand a year, by gad!" exclaimed the taller of the two, giving a supercilious sniff to the brandy he had just poured out.
"Yes, ha! ha!—and a damnably pretty filly into the bargain!"
"You always were so infernally lucky!" retorted the first.