"Quite true," said the gentleman, with an appreciative smile. "I was just about to speak of that. As I looked at you and noticed the resemblance between us, I couldn't but think how different everything would be to me if I were the man in the smock-frock and you were the man in the velvet coat. And then an odd idea came into my head. Said I to myself, 'Why shouldn't I try the experiment, and see how it may be to travel a short way through the world in a smock-frock?' I'm given to whims, you see, and, moreover, it will be a droll thing for me to appear, clad like you, at the house where I'm expected to-night. Ha! How my lord will stare to see me come in! In fine, my good man, I propose that we shall exchange clothes, and go on our different ways!"
"You mean that, for the clothes I have on, you would give me those you wear now?" cried Dick, astonished and amused.
"Precisely, with the cane and snuff-box thrown into the bargain."
"But don't you know you can buy in five minutes a suit of clothes like mine, for a hundredth part of the worth of all you offer me?"
"Yes, I know that, of course. But, you see, it would attract attention, my buying such clothes—"
"Oh, for that matter, I can buy them for you."
"No, for then they would either be new, in which case my—ah—disguise would be easier seen through; or they would be second-hand, and then God knows who might have worn them in the past! Besides, I can afford to pay for my whims, and it pleases me to think that you, too, who resemble me so much, would have the benefit of my clothes, as I should have of yours. Come! Or, rather, wait till I pay in advance for my room, which I'll occupy but half an hour; then I'll take you to it; we can change immediately, and go forth to see how differently the world will look at us."
Convinced, at last, that it was no insane person by whom he should be profiting, Dick saw no reason for interposing further objections; indeed, those already put had been offered merely to satisfy his natural scruples against being on the better side of so uneven a bargain, for the idea of swaggering awhile in costly raiment had instantly attracted him. In less than an hour thereafter, he issued from the inn, fully clad as a gentleman, while his whimsical acquaintance, slinking out as unobserved as Dick had slunk in, tipped him a friendly farewell and made off in the opposite direction, shouldering the portmanteau as if he were a hired porter.
As Dick strutted along the busy street, glancing at the shop-windows, and in turn glanced at by more than one pair of demure eyes, he suddenly bethought himself that a gentleman in velvet and lace, with silk stockings and gold buckles, but without a penny in pocket or in prospect, was a somewhat anomalous personage. Moreover, the county towns and country villages were a field far less worth shining in as a gentleman than were certain fields he now began to think he might soon visit.
He therefore visited certain dealers in the town, and by dinner-time he was minus the gold-headed cane and a gold-mounted snuff-box, but was the richer by a plainer snuff-box; some changes of linen, underclothes, neck-cloths, and handkerchiefs; a bag in which to carry all his movables; and a suit of clothes. He chose the last with a view to the fit only, regardless of the fact that it was a gamekeeper's costume. At another inn than the one where he had met the stranger, Dick doffed his fine feathers, put on the gamekeeper's suit, and dined, paying for his dinner with some money he had over from the proceeds of the cane and snuff-box.