All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.

“There’s something one knows a gentleman by,” said Clarissa, “but one can’t say what it is.”

‘The bottle–green,’ said old Arthur; ‘the bottle–green was a famous suit to wear, and I bought it very cheap at a pawnbroker’s, and there was—he, he, he!—a tarnished shilling in the waistcoat pocket. To think that the pawnbroker shouldn’t have known there was a shilling in it! I knew it! I felt it when I was examining the quality. Oh, what a dull dog of a pawnbroker! It was a lucky suit too, this bottle–green. The very day I put it on first, old Lord Mallowford was burnt to death in his bed, and all the post–obits fell in. I’ll be married in the bottle–green. Peg. Peg Sliderskew —I’ll wear the bottle–green!’