ad,
was dark short and fine. His eye was of a pale turbid grey, unsuited,
perhaps, to his dark hair and well-drawn brows, but not altogether out
of harmony with his colourless bilious complexion. His nose was aquiline
and delicate; beneath it his moustache languished much rather than
bristled. His mouth and chin were negative, or at the most provisional;
not vulgar, doubtless, but ineffectually refined. A cold fatal
gentlemanly weakness was expressed indeed in his attenuated person. His
eye was restless and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his manner of
shifting his weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of his head,
told of exhausted intentions, of a will relaxed. His dress was neat and
"toned down"--he might have been in mourning. I made up my mind on three
points: he was a bachelor, he was out of health, he was not indigenous
to the soil. The waiter approached him, and they conversed in accents
barely audible. I heard the words "claret," "sherry" with a tentative
inflexion, and finally "beer" with its last letter changed to "ah."
Perhaps he was a Russian in reduced circumstances; he reminded me
slightly of certain sceptical cosmopolite Russians whom I had met on the
Continent. While in my extravagant way I followed this train--for
you see I was interested--there appeared a short brisk man with
reddish-brown hair, with a vulgar nose, a sharp blue eye and a red
beard confined to his lower jaw and chin. My putative Russian, still in
possession of the rug, let his mild gaze stray over the dingy ornaments
of the room. The other drew near, and his umbrella dealt a playful
poke at the concave melancholy waistcoat. "A penny ha'penny for your
thoughts!"

My friend, as I call him, uttered an exclamation, stared, then laid
his two hands on the other's shoulders. The latter looked round at me
keenly, compassing me in a momentary glance. I read in its own vague
light that this was a transatlantic eyebeam; and with such confidence
that I hardly needed to see its owner, as he prepared, with his
companion, to seat himself at the table adjoining my own, take from his
overcoat-pocket three New York newspapers and lay them beside his
plate. As my neighbours proceeded to dine I felt the crumbs of their
conversation scattered pretty freely abroad. I could hear almost all
they said, without straining to catch it, over the top of the partition
that divided us. Occasionally their voices dropped to recovery of
discretion, but the