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