II
I was leaving the road at the Spaniards and striking across the West Heath when I came upon him. He also appeared to have been early, and to have been taking a walk to put away the time.
"Hallo!" I called, and he turned.
He was a short, rosy man of thirty-eight, with an inclination to plumpness that he only defeated by assiduous exercise; and his silk hat, "frocker" and grey cashmere trousers might have served some high tailor for an advertisement plate of perfect clothes. Perhaps they did, for I don't think that at that time he paid for them otherwise. His shirts and undergarments, of which he spoke with interest and readiness, were also perfect; and he not only made me feel in this respect like some rough bear of a Balzac, always in a dressing-gown, but even gave me, though quite without offensiveness, that and similar names. He gave me, in fact, this one now.
"Well, my dear Balzac!" he said, his rosy face breaking as suddenly into a smile as if a hundred invisible gravers had magically altered its whole clean modelling. "Out seeking an appetite?"
I laughed. "You're walking last night's supper off, I suppose?"
"N-o," he said, as if impartially looking back on whatever the excellent meal had been. "No—I'm scaling fairly low just now—just over the eleven stone. What are you, by the way?"
"Sixteen and a half—but then look at my size!"