d gentleman had determined to put himself to charges in honour of
his young friend, and not only to go to the play himself, but to
carry his womankind along with him. But old Jacob Caxon conveyed no
information which warranted his taking so decisive a step as that of
securing a box.

He brought information, on the contrary, that there was a young man
residing at Fairport, of whom the town (by which he meant all the
gossips, who, having no business of their own, fill up their leisure
moments by attending to that of other people) could make nothing. He
sought no society, but rather avoided that which the apparent gentleness
of his manners, and some degree of curiosity, induced many to offer him.
Nothing could be more regular, or less resembling an adventurer, than
his mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well arranged,
that all who had any transactions with him were loud in their
approbation.

"These are not the virtues of a stage-struck hero," thought Oldbuck to
himself; and, however habitually pertinacious in his opinions, he must
have been compelled to abandon that which he had formed in the
present instance, but for a part of Caxon's communication. "The young
gentleman," he said, "was sometimes heard speaking to himsell, and
rampauging about in his room, just as if he was ane o' the player folk."

Nothing, however, excepting this single circumstance, occurred to
confirm Mr. Oldbuck's supposition; and it remained a high and doubtful
question, what a well-informed young man, without friends, connections,
or employment of any kind, could have to do as a resident at Fairport.
Neither port wine nor whist had apparently any charms for him. He
declined dining with the mess of the volunteer cohort which had been
lately embodied, and shunned joining the convivialities of either of
the two parties which then divided Fairport, as they did more important
places. He was too little of an aristocrat to join the club of
Royal True Blues, and too little of a democrat to fraternise with an
affiliated society of the soi-disant Friends of the People, which the
borough had also the happiness of possessing. A coffee-room was his
detestation; and, I grieve to say it, he had as few sympathies with the
tea-table.--In short, since the name was fashionable in novel-writing,
and that is a great while agone, there was never a Master Lovel of whom
so little positive was known, and who was so universally described by
negatives.