coloured dresses. Among those who lingered as by right on the lawns were the élite of Arguello, and they bore themselves accordingly. The men were very bluff and sententious but with a roving eye on the punchbowls. The women wore huge excrescences called bustles and little hat-bonnets on the front of their heads and they walked with elegance. To the elders all this imparted an air of great dignity and virtue; but some of the younger, fresh-faced dashing creatures managed to make of these rather awful appurtenances weapons for conquest. They flirted the bustles from one side to the other; or they looked out from under square banged hair beneath the little hats, and great was the slaughter.
III
The stream past the Colonel and his wife swelled and slackened, but never ceased. As Boyd moved on after his conventional greeting, he heard the Colonel mention the name Corbell, and turned in curiosity to see the owner of the four-in-hand. He looked upon a rather short, dapper individual with a long, lean brown face, snapping black eyes, and a little moustache waxed to straight needle points. This man was exquisitely dressed in rough clothes of Norfolk cut—in that time and place!—a soft silk shirt and collar, a pastel necktie. He wore no jewelry but a large signet ring. His concession to the West was his hat, which was probably the widest, highest, and utmost turned out of the factory. With him seemed to be somewhat of a group of young men; of whom, however, Boyd noticed particularly only one. Indeed, that one could hardly escape notice. He stood well over six feet and bulged with enormous frame and muscles. His complexion was very blond, so that the ruddiness of his open-air skin showed in fierce and pleasing contrast to his bleached moustache and eyebrows. To make it all more emphatic he wore garments of small black and white checks. It would have been impossible to compute how many thousands of these little squares there were spread abroad over his great round chest and thick arms alone.
"Lord, there's a strong-looking chap. How'd you like to tackle him, Ken?" commented Mr. Boyd, as they drew apart.
