Let us present Captain Davis--for by that title was he popularly known--to our reader. He was a short, red-faced--very red-faced--man, with a profusion of orange-red hair, while he wore beard and whiskers in that form so common in our Crimean experiences. He was long-armed and bandy, the legs being singularly short and muscular. He affected dress, and was remarkable for more ostentation of velvet than consisted with ordinary taste, and a far greater display of rings, charms, and watch trinkets than is common even to gentlemen of the “Jewish persuasion.” The expression of the man's face was eminently determination, and his greenish-gray eyes and thin-lipped, compressed mouth plainly declared, “Bet with me or not,--if you give me the shadow of a shade of impertinence I 'll fasten a quarrel upon you of which all your rank and station won't protect you from the consequences. I can hit a sixpence at twenty paces, and I 'll make you feel that fact in every word you say to me. In my brevet rank of the turf you can't disown me, and if you try, mine the fault if you succeed.” He had been out three or four times in very sanguinary affairs, so that the question as to “meeting” him was a settled point. He was one of those men to whom the epithet “dangerous” completely applies; he was dangerous alike to the young fellow entering life, unsuspectful of its wiles and ignorant of its rascalities; dangerous in the easy facility with which he would make foolish wagers, and lend even large sums on the very slightest acquaintance. He seemed so impressed with his theory that everybody ought to have all the enjoyment he liked, there was such a careless good-nature about him, such an uncalculating generosity, an air of such general kindliness, that very young men felt at once at ease in his company; and if there were sundry things in his manner that indicated coarseness or bad breeding, if his address was vulgar and his style “snobbish,” there were sufficient traits of originality about him to form a set-off for these defects, and “Old Grog” was pronounced an “out-and-out good fellow,” and always ready “to help one at a pinch.”