butterfly transfixed by a pin. His thin, pallid lips curled with
disdain and yet, Chris thought, uneasiness perhaps, as he eyed the two
lads and the little knot of men. One strong, too white hand held a
whip, its long leather tail ending like a scorpion's sting, in a
length of wire. He held the five feet of the whip loosely caught in
his hand against the plaited leather handle, and Chris had an icy
sensation as he looked at it that it was never far from the large
white hand of Claggett Chew.

A little behind Claggett Chew, examining the scene through a pair of
jeweled lorgnettes, stood an even weirder figure.

"Osterbridge Hawsey," whispered Ned Cilley, as if to himself, as he
followed the direction of Chris's eyes.

Osterbridge Hawsey, younger than Claggett Chew by twenty years to
Claggett's forty, was dressed in the height of the French mode.
Anything more out of place on the dirty swarming docks of Georgetown
could scarcely have been imagined. His three-cornered hat was rakishly
set at an angle on his fair hair, which was meticulously rolled in
curls above his ears, and the curls were caught at his neck with a
black velvet ribbon. Beside Claggett Chew's offensive bare skull, the
hat, in its delicate blue velvet, silver braid, and airy rim of
ostrich feathers, was ludicrous. Osterbridge Hawsey's costume was of a
piece with the hat, for his coat was of fine blue velvet of too pale
a shade for any use outside a drawing room. It, too, was edged in
silver braid, and its owner, holding a lorgnette with his right hand,
with his left pushed back the velvet folds to display the delicacy of
his flower-embroidered waistcoat. Satin knee breeches, a cascade of
fine lace at his throat, and lace falling gracefully over his small
well-kept hands made up the picture. As Chris looked at him,
fascinated and repelled, he noticed that the young man wore a patch in
the shape of a crescent moon, on his left cheek.

Chris, who had been not a little overawed at seeing Claggett Chew,
could not restrain himself at the sight of this fop. The touch of fear
he had felt, looking into the pale expressionless eyes of Mr. Wicker's
enemy, found relief and release in an uncontrollable burst of laughter
when from his pocket Osterbridge Hawsey drew a tiny bottle of smelling
salts and held it delicately to his nose.

Chris's young laughter rose in peal after peal. Amos's warmer, quicker
laugh joined in, and in a second, laughter had spread to the gr