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I have been to a barber's and watched a young man having his beard clipped for a whole hour. He was probably engaged to be married or else a cardsharper. At the barber's the ceiling and all the four walls were made of looking-glass, so that you feel that you are not at a hairdresser's but at the Vatican where there are eleven thousand rooms. They cut your hair wonderfully.

Lovel knew him for one Bedloe, a led-captain and cardsharper, whom he had himself employed on occasion. The third man stood apart and appeared from his gesticulations to be speaking rapidly. He wore his own sandy hair, and every line of his mean freckled face told of excitement and fear.

The case made a lot of noise, even the cabmen all knew about it. Think, now! Shapkin the attorney managed my divorce for me, the rascal . . . the notorious cardsharper, the fellow who got a thrashing at the club. . . ." "Ivan Nikolaitch?" "Yes, yes. . . . Well, is he alive? Is he dead?" "Alive, sir, thank God. He is a notary now and has an office. He is very well off.

"He knows a Tula cardsharper, but ask him whether he knows Semiradsky, Tchaykovsky, or Solovyov the philosopher he'll shake his head.... It swinish!" Three minutes passed in silence. "Allow me in my turn to ask you a question," said the vis-a-vis timidly, clearing his throat. "Do you know the name of Pushkov?" "Pushkov? H'm! Pushkov.... No, I don't know it!"

Do you know, it seems that if I really had been born a cardsharper I should have remained a decent person to the day of my death, for I should never have had the boldness to do wrong.

Here Von Gleichen met the man of mystery and became rather intimate with him. Von Gleichen deemed him very much older than he looked, but did not believe in his elixir. In any case, he was not a cardsharper, a swindler, a professional medium, or a spy. The Count had a grand manner; he treated some great personages in a cavalier way, as if he were at least their equal.

Here Von Gleichen met the man of mystery and became rather intimate with him. Von Gleichen deemed him very much older than he looked, but did not believe in his elixir. In any case, he was not a cardsharper, a swindler, a professional medium, or a spy. The Count had a grand manner; he treated some great personages in a cavalier way, as if he were at least their equal.

The individual looked round at the seats, frowned, and went on further. "Do you know who that is?" there came a timid whisper from the furthest corner of the compartment. "That is N. N., the famous Tula cardsharper who was had up in connection with the Y. bank affair." "There you are!" laughed the first-class passenger.

Apparently he was in that mood of irritation and sadness when women weep quietly for no reason, and men feel a craving to complain of themselves, of life, of God. . . . When I got out of the chaise at the gates of the house the prince said to me: "A man once said, wanting to annoy me, that I have the face of a cardsharper. I have noticed that cardsharpers are usually dark.

Not that I do not say that to be 'good, to be able to look your own ugly jowl in the face in a mirror, is pleasant enough; but, as I see the matter, it is all one to other people whether you be a cardsharper or a priest so long as you're polite, and let down your neighbours lightly. That's what they want."