He is certainly an open-handed old gentleman, but
they fear he has lived too fast; indeed, they never knew any good
come of this fondness for hunting, racing revelling, and
prize-fighting. In short, Mr. Bull's estate is a very fine one
and has been in the family a long while, but, for all that, they
have known many finer estates come to the hammer."
What is worst of all, is the effect which these pecuniary
embarrassments and domestic feuds have had on the poor man
himself. Instead of that jolly round corporation and smug rosy
face which he used to present, he has of late become as
shrivelled and shrunk as a frost-bitten apple. His scarlet
gold-laced waistcoat, which bellied out so bravely in those
prosperous days when he sailed before the wind, now hangs loosely
about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather breeches are all
in folds and wrinkles, and apparently have much ado to hold up
the boots that yawn on both sides of his once sturdy legs.
Instead of strutting about as formerly with his three-cornered
hat on one side, flourishing his cudgel, and bringing it down
every moment with a hearty thump upon the ground, looking every
one sturdily in the face, and trolling out a stave of a catch or
a drinking-song, he now goes about whistling thoughtfully to
himself, with his head drooping down, his cudgel tucked under his
arm, and his hands thrust to the bottom of his breeches pockets,
which are evidently empty.
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