James's Square; but, observing the person
of the importunate knocker, with that classifying and discriminating
eye peculiar to footmen, immediately frowned and shook his head:
"The hother door, me man,--marked 'tradesmen,'" said he, the angle
of his nose a little more supercilious than usual, "and ring only,
_if_ you please." Having said which, he shut the door again; that
is to say,--very nearly, for strive as he might, his efforts were
unavailing, by reason of a round and somewhat battered object which,
from its general conformation, he took to be the end of a formidable
bludgeon or staff. But, applying his eye to the aperture, he saw
that this very obtrusive object was nothing more or less than a leg
(that is to say, a wooden one), which was attached to the person of
a burly, broad-shouldered, fiercely bewhiskered man in clothes of
navy-blue, a man whose hairy, good-natured visage was appropriately
shaded by a very shiny glazed hat.
"Avast there!" said this personage in deep, albeit jovial tones,
"ease away there, my lad,--stand by and let old Timbertoes come
aboard!"
But the Gentleman-in-Powder was not to be cajoled.
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