A marvel of manly strength and grace and beauty, thirty years of
age or so, and faultlessly dressed. Said to be aristocratically
connected, he was the admiration of all and the darling of the young
ladies of Derby. He lodged in fashionable apartments, smoked expensive
cigars, attended all public amusements, was affable and charming, but
reticent about himself. Why he ever came amongst us none ever knew; it
was a mystery we never fathomed. He left as he came, a mystery still.
There was an oldish clerk whom we nicknamed _Gumpots_. This bore some
resemblance to his surname, but there were other reasons which led to the
playful designation and which I think justified it.
There was another scribe of quite an elegant sort: a perambulating
tailor's dummy; a young man, well under thirty. He was good-looking, as
far as regularity of features and a well-formed figure went, but mentally
not much to boast of. He lounged about the station platform and the town
displaying his faultlessly fitting fashionable clothes. They always
looked new, and as his salary was not more than 70 pounds a year, and his
parents, with whom he lived, were poor, the story that he was provided
gratis by an enterprising tailor in town with these suits, on condition
that he exhibited himself constantly in public, and told whenever he
could who was his outfitter, received general credence, and I believe was
true.
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