He was that most remarkable product--an English gentleman. Given the real article--and there is no mistaking it when once encountered--there is nothing in the world which can be compared to it. I speak who know. He was tall. He was perfectly dressed. He was handsome--I never saw a more handsome man. And he had that air of infinite, yet unconscious, condescension which the English gentleman, alone of all the creatures of the world, is born with, and which, willy-nilly, he carries with him from the cradle to the grave. They tell you in the different countries of the world that the Englishman is awkward, shy, ungraceful, seldom at his ease. May be; but not the English gentleman. He is the only man I have known who is always at his ease in every possible situation. But he is not to be found on every bush. Even in his own country he is the rarest of rare birds. Being born a peer, even though he can trace his tree to Noah, does not make a man a gentleman--you bet that it does not. I believe that an English gentleman is a caprice, an accident. He is not to be accounted for by natural laws. And though, for all I know, he may be trusted by his fellows, he is not to be trusted by a woman. He has one code of honour for his own sex and another for ours. That is so, though it may not be according to the copybooks. My friend the gentleman was a real smart man. As he lolled back in his seat, enjoying his tobacco, it did you good to see him smile. His voice was typical of his kind, it fell like music on your ears. As you looked at him and listened, you could have sworn that he had not a care upon his mind. He was at peace with himself, and all the world. And it was all so natural; he was to the manner born. I found him quite delightful. I could see what he was doing--he was reckoning me up. And he was puzzled where to place me. I took him into my real confidence, for reasons of my own, and that puzzled him still more. I told him nothing but the truth. How I had gone out to America, and met poor dear Daniel, and married him. And how he had died and left me a widow, and his pile to comfort me. And how I had come back to England childless and forlorn and all alone. I laid stress upon my loneliness. I think that touched him. When a woman tells a man that she is lonely he takes it that she means that there is not a man anywhere in sight, and that the coast is clear for him, and that does touch him. His manner became quite sympathetic. He was as nice as could be--allusive, as a real smart man can be, with a delicate, intangible directness almost equal to a woman's.