CHAPTER III.
In which the Green Overcoat appears as a point of religion by not being there.
In the smoking-room of Sir John Perkin's house upon the same evening of Monday, the 2nd of May, sat together in conversation a merchant and a friend of his, no younger, a man whose name was Charles Kirby, whose profession was that of a solicitor. The name of the merchant who had retired apart to enjoy with this friend a reasonable and useful conversation, was Mr. John Brassington. He was wealthy, he dealt in leather; he was a pillar of the town of Ormeston, he had been its mayor. He was an honest man, which is no less than to say the noblest work of God.
Mr. John Brassington was, in this month of May, sixty years of age. He was tall, but broad in shoulder though not stout. He carried the square grey whiskers of a forgotten period in social history. He had inherited from his father, also a mayor of Ormeston, that good business in the leather trade; it was
