Much as I had heard of Tom Draw, I was I must confess, taken altogether aback when I, for the first time, set eyes upon him. I had heard Harry Archer talk of him fifty times as a crack shot; as a top sawyer at a long day's fag; as the man of all others he would choose as his mate, if he were to shoot a match, two against two--what then was my astonishment at beholding this worthy, as he reared himself slowly from his recumbent position? It is true, I had heard his sobriquet, "Fat Tom," but, Heaven and Earth! such a mass of beef and brandy as stood before me, I had never even dreamt of. About five feet six inches at the very utmost in the perpendicular, by six or--"by'r lady"--nearer seven in circumference, weighing, at the least computation, two hundred and fifty pounds, with a broad jolly face, its every feature--well-formed and handsome, rather than otherwise--mantling with an expression of the most perfect excellence of heart and temper, and overshadowed by a vast mass of brown hair, sprinkled pretty well with gray!--Down he plumped from the counter with a thud that made the whole floor shake, and with a hand outstretched, that might have done for a Goliah, out he strode to meet us. "Why, hulloa! hulloa! Mr. Archer," shaking his hand till I thought he would have dragged the arm clean out of the socket--"How be you, boy? How be you?" "Right well, Tom, can't you see? Why confound you, you've grown twenty pound heavier since July!--but here, I'm losing all my manners!--this is Frank Forester, whom you have heard me talk about so often! He dropped down here out of the moon, Tom, I believe! at least I thought about as much of seeing the man in the moon, as of meeting him in this wooden country--but here he is, as you see, come all the way to take a look at the natives. And so, you see, as you're about the greatest curiosity I know of in these parts, I brought him straight up here to take a peep! Look at him, Frank--look at him well! Now, did you ever see, in all your life, so extraordinary an old devil?--and yet, Frank, which no man could possibly believe, the old fat animal has some good points about him--he can walk some! shoot, as he says, first best! and drink--good Lord, how he can drink!" "And that reminds me," exclaimed Tom, who with a ludicrous mixture of pleasure, bashfulness, and mock anger, had been listening to what he evidently deemed a high encomium; "that we hav'nt drinked yet; have you quit drink, Archer, since I was to York? What'll you take, Mr. Forester? Gin? yes, I have got some prime gin! You never sent me up them groceries though, Archer; well, then, here's luck! What, Yorkshire, is that you? I should ha' thought now, Archer, you'd have cleared that lazy Injun out afore this time!" "Whoy, measter Draa--what 'na loike's that kind o' talk? coom coom now, where'll Ay tak t' things tull?"