't care whether you object or not: I intend to
enjoy my weed all the same."

The stranger, however, seemed in nowise offended. He smirked and
quavered two yellow-gloved fingers out of his furs. "Oh, no, certainly
not," he said. "I, too, am a smoker and shall join you presently."

He spoke with the slightest possible foreign accent, just sufficient to
tell an educated ear that he was not an Englishman. If Captain Ducie's
features were aquiline, those of the stranger might be termed
vulturine--long, lean, narrow, with a thin, high-ridged nose, and a chin
that was pointed with a tuft of thick, black hair. Except for this tuft
he was clean shaven. His black hair, cropped close at back and sides,
was trained into an elaborate curl on the top of the forehead and there
fixed with _cosmetique_. Both hair and chin-tuft were of that
uncompromising blue-black which tells unmistakably of the dye-pot. His
skin was yellow and parchment-like, and stretched tightly over his
forehead and high cheek-bones, but puckering into a perfect net-work of
lines about a mouth whose predominant expression was one of mingled
cynicism and suspicion. There was suspicion, too, in his small black
eyes, as well as a sort of lurking fierceness which not even his most
urbane and elaborate smile could altogether eliminate. In person he was
very thin and somewhat under the middle height, and had all the air of a
confirmed valetudinarian. He was dressed as no English gentleman would
care to be seen dressed in public. A long brown velvet coat trimmed with
fur; lavender-coloured trousers tightly strapped over patent leather
boots; two or three vests of different colours under one made of the
skin of some animal and fastened with gold buttons; a profusion of
jewellery; an embroidered shirt-front and deep turn-down collar: such
were the chief items of his attire. A hat with a very curly brim hung
from the carriage roof, while for present head-gear he wore a sealskin
travelling cap with huge lappets that came below his ears. In this cap,
and wrapped to the chin in his bear-skin rug, he looked like some
newly-discovered species of animal--a sort of cross between a vulture
and a monkey, were such a thing possible, combining the deep-seated
fierceness of the one with the fantastic cunning, and the impossibility
of doing the most serious things without a grimace, of the other.

No sooner had Captain Ducie lighted his cigar than with an impatient
movement he put down