'Who?' I asked. He was looking on me from the corners of his eyes, and
smiling in a sly, rakish way, that no man likes in another.

'Radie Lake--she's a splendid girl, by Jove! Don't you think so? and she
liked me once devilish well, I can tell you. She was thin then, but she
has plumped out a bit, and improved every way.'

Whatever else he was, Mark was certainly no beauty;--a little short he
was, and rather square--one shoulder a thought higher than the other--and
a slight, energetic hitch in it when he walked. His features in profile
had something of a Grecian character, but his face was too broad--very
brown, rather a bloodless brown--and he had a pair of great, dense,
vulgar, black whiskers. He was very vain of his teeth--his only really
good point--for his eyes were a small cunning, gray pair; and this,
perhaps, was the reason why he had contracted his habit of laughing and
grinning a good deal more than the fun of the dialogue always warranted.

This sea-monster smoked here as unceremoniously as he would have done in
'Rees's Divan,' and I only wonder he did not call for brandy-and-water.
He had either grown coarser a great deal, or I more decent, during our
separation. He talked of his _fiancee_ as he might of an opera-girl
almost, and was now discussing Miss Lake in the same style.

'Yes, she is--she's very well; but hang it, Wylder, you're a married man
now, and must give up talking that way. People won't like it, you know;
they'll take it to mean more than it does, and you oughtn't. Let us have
another game.'

'By-and-by; what do you think of Larkin?' asked Wylder, with a sly glance