noon
As I wish to describe these persons as accurately as possible , I may add , he wore a dark-coloured coat , corduroy breeches , and spatterdashes . At the upper end of the same table , in an ample easy-chair covered with black leather , reposed a fat personage , about fifty years old , who either was actually a country justice , or was well selected to represent such a character . His leathern breeches were faultless in make , his jockey boots spotless in the varnish , and a handsome and flourishing pair of boot-garters , as they are called , united the one part of his garments to the other ; in fine , a richly-laced scarlet waistcoat and a purple coat set off the neat though corpulent figure of the little man , and threw an additional bloom upon his plethoric aspect . I suppose he had dined , for it was two hours past noon , and he was amusing himself , and aiding digestion , with a pipe of tobacco . There was an air of importance in his manner which corresponded to the rural dignity of his exterior , and a habit which he had of throwing out a number of interjectional sounds , uttered with a strange variety of intonation running from bass up to treble in a very extraordinary manner , or breaking off his sentences with a whiff of his pipe , seemed adopted to give an air of thought and mature deliberation to his opinions and decisions . Notwithstanding all this , Alan , it might be DOOTED , as our old Professor used to say , whether the Justice was anything more then an ass . Certainly , besides a great deference for the legal opinion of his clerk , which might be quite according to the order of things , he seemed to be wonderfully under the command of his brother squire , if squire either of them were , and indeed much more than was consistent with so much assumed consequence of his own .