"Hello, Colonel! Home, are you? Chad, where's my julep? Ah, Major, hope I see you vehy well, suh. Where's Kerfoot?" That legal luminary craned his head forward as far as it would go without necessitating any additional movement of his body, caught Yancey's eye as he leaned out of the window, and held up the empty glass. When everybody had stopped laughing the colonel made a critical but silent examination of the judge, called to Yancey, and said:-- "Gentlemen, we do not dine until seven. You will both have ample time to dress." CHAPTER X _Chad in Search of a Coal-Field_ The colonel was the first man downstairs. When he entered I saw at a glance that it was one of his gala nights, for he wore the ceremonial white waistcoat and cravat, and had thrown the accommodating coat wide open. His hair, too, was brushed back from his broad forehead with more than usual care, each silver thread keeping its proper place in the general scheme of iron-gray; while his goatee was twisted to so fine a point that it curled upward like a fishhook. He had also changed his shoes, his white stockings now being incased in low prunellas tied with a fresh ribbon, which hung over the toes like the drooping ears of a lapdog. The attention which the colonel paid to these particular details was due, as he frequently said, to his belief that a man would always be well dressed who looked after his extremities. "I can inva'iably, suh, detect the gentleman under the shabbiest suit of clothes, if his collar and stockings are clean. When, besides this, he brushes his hat and blacks his shoes, you may safely invite him to dinner." Something like this was evidently passing in his mind as he stood waiting for his guests, his back to the empty grate; for he examined his hands critically, glanced at his shoes, and then excusing himself, turned his face, and taking a pair of scissors from his pocket proceeded leisurely to trim his cuffs. "These duties of the dressin'-room, my dear Major, should have been attended to in their proper place; but the fact is the jedge is makin' rather an elaborate toilet in honor of our guest, and as Yancey occupies my bedroom, and the jedge is also dressin' there, my own accommodations are limited. I feel sure you will excuse me." While he spoke the door opened, and his Honor entered in a William Penn style of make-up, ruffled shirt and all. He really was not unlike that distinguished peacemaker, especially when he carried one of the colonel's long pipes in his mouth. He had, I am happy to say, since leaving the front steps, accumulated an increased amount of clothing. The upper half of the familiar butternut suit--the coat--still clung to him, but the middle and lower half had been supplanted by another waistcoat and trousers of faded nankeen, the first corrugated into wrinkles and the second flapping about his ankles.