The short and thick-set body, however, seemed to have no particular
appreciation of the beauties of nature as exhibited by West One-hundred and
Eighteenth Street on a summer's evening. If anything, he could
apparently have desired a cooling breeze; for, after a moment's doubtful
consideration, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and heaved a sigh of relief.

Then, carefully shifting the butt of a dead cigar from one corner of his
mouth to the other, where it was almost hidden by the jutting thatch of his
black mustache, and drawing down over his eyes the brim of a rusty plug
hat, he thrust fat hands into the pockets of his shabby trousers and
lounged against the polished pillar even more energetically than before: if
that were possible. An unromantic, apathetic figure, fitting so naturally
into his surroundings as to demand no second look even from the most
observant; yet one seeming to possess a magnetic attraction for the eyes of
the hall-boy of the apartment hotel (who, acquainted by sight and hearsay
with the stout gentleman's identity and calling, bent upon him a steadfast
and adoring regard), as well as for the policeman who lorded it on the St.
Nicholas Avenue corner, in front of the real-estate office, and who from
time to time shifted his contemplation from the infinite spaces of the
heavens, the better to exchange a furtive nod with the idler in the hotel
doorway.

Presently,--at no great lapse of time after the short and thick-set man had
stowed away his watch,--out of the thronged sidewalks of Seventh Avenue a
man appeared, walking west on the north side of the street and reviewing
carelessly the numbers on the illuminated fanlights: a tall man, dressed
all in grey, and swinging a thin walking stick.

The short, thick-set person assumed a mien of more intense abstraction than
ever.