The habits that I had contracted, among my student friends in Germany,
made tobacco and beer necessary accompaniments to the process of
thinking. I had nearly exhausted my cigar, my jug, and my thoughts, when
I saw two men approaching me from the end of the terrace.
As they came nearer, I recognized in one of the men my fat domestic in
black. He stopped the person who was accompanying him and came on to me
by himself.
"Will you see that man, sir, waiting behind me?"
"Who is he?"
"I don't know, sir. He says he has got a letter to give you, and he must
put it in your own hands. I think myself he's a beggar. He's excessively
insolent--he insists on seeing you. Shall I tell him to go?"
The servant evidently expected me to say Yes. He was disappointed; my
curiosity was roused; I said I would see the insolent stranger.
As he approached me, the man certainly did not look like a beggar. Poor
he might be, judging by his dress. The upper part of him was clothed in
an old shooting jacket of velveteen; his legs presented a pair of
trousers, once black, now turning brown with age. Both garments were too
long for him, and both were kept scrupulously clean. He was a short man,
thickly and strongly made. Impenetrable composure appeared on his ugly
face. His eyes were sunk deep in his head; his nose had evidently been
broken and not successfully mended; his grey hair, when he took off his
hat on addressing me, was cut short, and showed his low forehead and his
bull neck.
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