ational powers
than the mode of travelling they had just relinquished, came out of his
entertainment.

But still the Major, blunt and tough as he was, and as he so very often
said he was, administered some palatable catering to his companion's
appetite. He related, or rather suffered it to escape him, accidentally,
and as one might say, grudgingly and against his will, how there was
great curiosity and excitement at the club, in regard of his friend
Dombey. How he was suffocated with questions, Sir. How old Joe Bagstock
was a greater man than ever, there, on the strength of Dombey. How they
said, 'Bagstock, your friend Dombey now, what is the view he takes of
such and such a question? Though, by the Rood, Sir,' said the Major,
with a broad stare, 'how they discovered that J. B. ever came to know
you, is a mystery!'

In this flow of spirits and conversation, only interrupted by his usual
plethoric symptoms, and by intervals of lunch, and from time to time by
some violent assault upon the Native, who wore a pair of ear-rings
in his dark-brown ears, and on whom his European clothes sat with an
outlandish impossibility of adjustment--being, of their own accord, and
without any reference to the tailor's art, long where they ought to be
short, short where they ought to be long, tight where they ought to be
loose, and loose where they ought to be tight--and to which he imparted
a new grace, whenever the Major attacked him, by shrinking into them
like a shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey--in this flow of spirits and
conversation, the Major continued all day: so that when evening came
on, and found them trotting through the green and leafy road near
Leamington, the Major's voice, what with talking and eating and
chuckling and choking, appeared to be in the box under the rumble, or in
some neighbouring hay-stack. Nor did the Major improve it at the
Royal Hotel, where rooms and dinner had been ordered, and where he so
oppressed his organs of speech by eating and drinking, that when he
retired to bed he had no voice at all, except to cough with, and could
only make himself intelligible to the dark servant by gasping at him.

He not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed, but
conducted himself, at breakfast like a giant refreshing. At this
meal they arranged their daily habits. The Major was to take the
responsibility of ordering everything to eat and drink; and they were to
have a late breakfast together every mor