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Gentlemen with grooms behind them pass towards the Park. Great dowager barouches roll along emblazoned with coronets, and driven by coachmen in silvery wigs. Wistful provincials gaze in at the clubs. Foreigners chatter and show their teeth, and look at the ladies in the carriages, and smoke and spit refreshingly round about. Policeman X slouches along the pavement.
"Well, first, I'll tell you that we belong to the old Fourteenth Ohio Volunteers, which, if you know anything about the Army of the Cumberland, you'll remember has just about as good a record as any that trains around old Pap Thomas and he don't 'low no slouches of any kind near him, either you can bet $500 to a cent on that, and offer to give back the cent if you win.
We've dug three lines of trenches and made a heap of pretty redoubts, and I guess they're well laid out, for the Army staff has supervised them and they're no slouches at this brand of engineering. You would have laughed to see the labour we employed. We had all breeds of Dago and Chinaman, and some of your own South African blacks, and they got so busy on the job they forgot about bedtime.
Above all must one beware of judging a man's position by his coat. It is impossible to tell whether the dirty old man who slouches along the street is a millionaire or a beggar. The older his coat, and the dirtier his shirt, the more the probabilities are in favour of the millionaire. Perhaps he thinks he can afford to dress as he pleases.
Why, when you meet a young couple, of what you are pleased to call the "lower classes," walking in the Park, the man hangs down his head as he slouches along, but the girl looks defiantly at you, as much as to say, "I've got him. Bless him! What have you to say about it?" while the man seems to be ashamed of himself, and evidently feels that he's been had.
"Stepping fast is one of the best things we do," said, Bob, in answer to this friendly challenge. "You may be some speed, but we're not such slouches, either." "Do your worst! We defy you!" cried Herb, striking a melodramatic attitude. "All right," said Lon, laughing. "Remember, though, I've given you fair warning. I see you're buying vacuum tubes," he added, curiously.
Laird, he's a schoolmaster already, and you'd orter hear him telling stories about them old Romans and Greeks, and explainin' things that a dub like me's sure to get stuck on. The other two they say one schoolmaster to a family's enough, and it's them sticking to the farm, and they ain't no slouches on farming neither. They've read an awful lot, and attended lectures, and got things down fine.
As I read them they're as cunning as cats, and if you play the feline game they will outwit you every time. Yes, Sir, they are no slouches at sleuth-work.
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent maxim, Thompson," remarked Willoughby. "It is that," retorted Mosey. "Divil a fear but they'll nicely bone anythin' in the shape o' credit. Toffs is no slouches at barrickin' for theyre own push. An' I'll tell you another dash good maximum, it's to keep off of weltin' a dyin' man." "Did you ever read Burke's Diary, Willoughby?" asked Thompson.
There, not ten paces away his forage cap on the back of his head, his hulking shoulders more bent than ever, hands in his pockets and a scowl on his face stands, or rather slouches, Rix. He looks unkempt, dirty, determinedly ugly, and very much as though he had been in liquor most of the week, and was sober now only through adverse circumstances over which he had no control.
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