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In the centre of them was an old man on a chair, also expectorating, and by his side one older and scraggier, his waistcoat covered with snuff and medals, palpitated in a state of senile decay, holding in a withered hand a palmfull of snuff which he had forgotten to inhale. There were a lot of women saying nothing and spitting. A sour, hard-faced woman admitted that there was coffee.
Sometimes walking with Julia, humbly dressed and mingling with the crowd, her head-dress arranged to hide her face as much as might be, she saw the rich lords of Rome go by in chariots, on horseback, in litters, all sorts and conditions of them, fat, proud men with bold eyes; hard-faced statesmen or lawyers; war-worn, cruel-looking captains; dissolute youths with foppish dress and perfumed hair, and shuddering, wondered whether she was appointed to any one of these.
Burns sighed, glanced at me inquisitively, as much as to say, "Aren't you going yet?" and then turned his thoughts from his new captain back to the old, who, being dead, had no authority, was not in anybody's way, and was much easier to deal with. Mr. Burns dealt with him at some length. He was a peculiar man of sixty-five about iron gray, hard-faced, obstinate, and uncommunicative.
But, as he sat in the Pile-drivers' Home, it looked as if his fall-down was very near. In his pocket was precisely the room-rent for the following week, the advance payment of which was already three days overdue and clamorously demanded by the hard-faced landlady. In the rooms, with care, was enough food with which to pinch through for another day.
Then the hard-faced, white-headed old director, who held supreme command of the police of the Republic, glanced at him shrewdly, and, continuing, said: "It is alleged that you, Paul Le Pontois, on the fourteenth day of January, and again on the sixteenth of May, met in Commercy a certain Englishman, and handed to him a bundle of English notes since proved to be forgeries."
One of the foresters betook himself off immediately, journeying on to Frampton, where he had some relatives, his visit to them being an ostensible reason for his presence on the wrong side of the Severn. He was a hard-faced fellow, with a pair of small, greedy-looking blue eyes.
"She isn't French," said Mrs. Ennis; "she's American. And she's only been married five years. She's just a child twenty-six." "Oh!" ejaculated Burnaby. "One of those hard-faced children! I understand Newport, Palm Beach, cocktails " His voice was cut across by Mrs. Ennis's indignant retort. "You don't in the least!" she said.
"Ask Counsellor Browbeater, the hard-faced barrister, that has the right of Black Trot in the Castle, and he will tell you." "We all know that very well, Val, no thanks to your squeamishness," observed Deaker; "the truth is, he did not wish to let him out for a reason he has," he added, winking at the rest.
There was old walrus-faced Wallenloup; thin, dark, reckless Colendorp; Adiron, whose great bulk behind a cavalry sword was a sight for the gods, and so on; the three lieutenants following closely in the footsteps of the three lieutenants who had been before them; men who went to the rendezvous of a duel in all comfort, affecting to be infinitely more afraid of catching cold than of being killed; men who kissed the wife and dispatched the husband with equal skill and as little noise as might be; men who were feared by a rough, swaggering, raucous soldiery, whom they only knew through the hard-faced sergeants; men, in fact, who lived out their debonair, picturesquely evil lives to the satisfaction of themselves and of few others.
Am I the life and soul of every company I come into? No, it cannot be said you are." That hard-faced gentleman a wit! Why, Nature wrote on his fanatic forehead fifty years ago, "Wit never comes, that comes to all." I should be as scandalized at a bon-mot issuing from his oracle-looking mouth as to see Cato go down a country-dance. God love you all!
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