Ashburner looked up, and saw meeting them a large Frenchman and a small Irish boy. The Frenchman had an immense quantity of hair of all sorts on his face, nearly hiding his features, which, as what was visible of them had a particularly villainous air, was about the best thing he could have done to them; and on his head he carried a something of felt, which indisputably proved the proposition that matter may exist without form. The Irish youth sported a well-meant, but not very successful attempt at a moustache, and a black cloth cap pitched on one side of his head. In other respects, they were attired in the usual costume of an American snob; that is to say, a dress-coat and full suit of black at seven in the morning. Ashburner noticed that Benson spit ostentatiously while passing them; and after passing he swore again, this time in downright English. Le Roi had seen in his acquaintance with European watering-places, a goodly amount of scamps and blacklegs, and Ashburner was not without some experience of the sort, so that they were not disposed to be curious about one blackguard more or less in a place of the kind; but these two fellows had such a look of unmitigated rascality, that both the foreigners glanced inquiringly at their friend, and were both on the point of asking him some questions, when he anticipated their desire. "God forgive me for swearing, but it is too provoking to meet these loafers in respectable quarters. The ancients used to think their journey spoiled if they met an unclean animal on starting, and I feel as if my whole stay here would go wrong after meeting these animals the first thing in the first morning." "_Mais qu'est ce qu'ils sont donc, ces vaut-riens?_" asked Le Roi. "The Frenchman is a deported convict, who is doing us the honor to serve out his time here; the Irishman is a refugee, I believe. They have come here to report for _The Sewer_." They cooled their virtuous indignation in the spring, and were returning. "Hallo, Benson! Hallo! I thought that was you!" shouted somebody, a quarter of a mile off, from the hotel steps. "Ah," said Harry, "I understand now why you heard so much noise this morning. Bird Simpson has arrived."