We always stopped and talked; of the topics of the day, the
weather, what a pleasant place London was, how handsome the women, how
well dressed the men. At the Clearing House we usually sat next each
other. I liked him and I think he liked me. Do not think he was a beau
and nothing more. No, he was a hard-headed Scotchman, full of ability
and work, and as a railway manager stood at the top of the ladder. Next
to him Sir Frederick Harrison, General Manager of the London and North-
Western Railway, was, I think, the best dressed railway man. Both he and
Sir James were tall, handsome fellows, and I confess to having admired
them, perhaps as much for their good looks and their taste and style, as
for their intellectual qualities; and I have often thought that men in
high positions would not do amiss to pay some attention to old Polonius'
admonition to his son that, "the apparel oft proclaims the man."
In the friends I made I was fortunate too. They included two or three
budding lawyers, a young engineer, a banker, a doctor, two embryo hotel
managers, an auctioneer, and one or two journalists; and, as I have
mentioned before, my artist friend _Cynicus_.
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