A Story
Well, it happened about three o’clock. The gentlemen were playing. There was the big stranger, as our men called him. The prince was there—the two are always together. The whiskered bárin was there; also the little hussar, Oliver, who was an actor, and there was the pan . It was a pretty good crowd.
The big stranger and the prince were playing together. Now, here I was walking up and down around the billiard-table with my stick, keeping tally—ten and forty-seven, twelve and forty-seven.
Everybody knows it’s our business to score. You don’t get a chance to get a bite of anything, and you don’t get to bed till two o’clock o’ nights, but you’re always being screamed at to bring the balls.
I was keeping tally; and I look, and see a new bárin comes in at the door. He gazed and gazed, and then sat down on the sofa. Very well!
“Now, who can that be?” thinks I to myself. “He must be somebody.”
His dress was neat—neat as a pin—checkered tricot pants, stylish little short coat, plush vest, and gold chain and all sorts of trinkets dangling from it.
He was dressed neat; but there was something about the man neater still; slim, tall, his hair brushed forward in style, and his face fair and ruddy—well, in a word, a fine young fellow.
You must know our business brings us into contact with all sorts of people. And there’s many that ain’t of much consequence, and there’s a