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Jim always ran to muscle and bone, and even then he was square and tall, short of speech and long in the arm, much given to lounging with his broad back against walls, and his hands deep in his breeches pockets. I can even recall that he had a trick of keeping a straw in the corner of his mouth, just where he used afterwards to hold his pipe.
A narrow bench stood against the wall, with a couple of half drunken men lounging upon it. The marshal routed them out with a single, expressive gesture. "Wait here with the lady, Fairbain," he said shortly, "and I'll arrange for the room." They watched him glance in at the bar, vigilant and cautious, and then move directly across to the desk. "Tommy," he said genially to the clerk.
For one thing, the building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to study the requirements of his guests, who came from the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general lounging place on the first floor, one of which was reserved for the wives and daughters of the farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing.
"Didn't know but this new freak with the snowy hair had gobbled you up," said Bart Hodge. "Told you he was all right," grunted Bruce Browning, who was lounging on the most comfortable chair in the place. "You were so weary you didn't want to bother about going to make inquiries for him," said Elsie Bellwood. "Mrs. Medford was on the point of applying to the police."
The very rabble, with which these pillared lounging places swarm, looked on him with a suspicious and half contemptuous eye; that insolently inquired what business had he there? Were the slaves and menials of Maecenas such? Was it thus at the Augustan court; when the lord of the conquered world sat banqueting with Virgil on his right hand and Horace on his left?
Her companion was a young man about twenty-three years of age, dark, almost swarthy of hue, tanned by the suns and storms of foreign seas and many lands, As he sat there in the shade of the settle one caught a glance of black eyes and a gleam of white teeth, but the easy, lounging attitude did not show to advantage the splendid build of Gethin Owens.
The fact gave the last touch of incongruity to his agonies and exaltations, and made him appear to himself as grotesque and superannuated as the hero of a romantic novel. He stood up from a bench on which he had been lounging in the Luxembourg gardens, and hailed a taxi. Dusk had fallen, and he meant to go back to his hotel, take a rest, and then go out to dine.
Here, too, they saw familiar phantoms: poor Jo, perpetually moving on; and little Oliver led by Nancy, with a shawl over her head and a black eye; Bill Sykes, lounging in a doorway, looking more ruffianly than ever; and the Artful Dodger, who kept his eye on them as two hopeful 'plants' with profitable pockets ready for him.
There were four other houses in the neighbourhood, all filled with people. A fine old fellow, with face, shoulders, and breast tattooed all over in a cross-bar pattern, was the first strange object that caught my eye. Most of the men lay lounging or sleeping in their hammocks.
The different wards might have been cleaner and better ordered; I saw nothing of that salutary system which had impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and everything had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful.