428
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
a deed with him to be executed in that town, and so sweet-
ening his journey with this small incident of profit.
Now, therefore, looking at his watch, and consulting hi.
time-table, he got his slim valise from under on top of
the seat before him, together with his hat-case, despatch-
box, stick, and umbrella, and brushed off with his hand-
kerchief some of the gritty railway dust that lay drifted
in exterior folds and hollows of his coat, rebuttoned that
garment with precision, arranged his shirt-collar, stuffed
his muffler into his coat-pocket, and made generally that
rude sacrifice to the graces with which natty men precede
their exit from the dust and ashes of this sort of sepulture.
At this moment he had just eight minutes more to go,
and the glitter of the pair of eyes, staring between the
muffler and the rim of the hat met his view once more.
Mr. Larkin's cigar-case was open in his hand in a mo-
ment, and with such a smile as a genteel perfumer offers his
wares with, he presented it toward the gentleman who was
built up in the stack of garments.
He merely shook his head with the slightest imaginable
nod and a wave of a pudgy hand in a soiled dog-skin
glove, which emerged for a second from under a cape, in
token that he gratefully declined the favor.
Mr. Larkin smiled and shrugged regretfully, and re-
placed the case in his coat pocket. Hardly five minutes
remained now. Larkin glanced round for a topic.
"My journey is over for the present, sir, and perhaps
vou would find these little things entertaining."
A.nd he tendered with the same smile "Punch," the
-^pny Gleaner," and "Gray's Magazine," a religious
sent They were, however, similarly declined in pan-
xtomin
X A * 111
Mi^Nn
i not particularly polite, whoever he is," thought
lSB**\, with a sniff. However he tried the effect of