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One of these very poor devils that I have in my mind has now a considerable fortune, with rooms in a fashionable quarter of London, and in frock-coat and tall hat "swells" it with the best! How quickly men change to be sure! A man who at one time would "steal the shirt off a dead black-fellow," in a few short months is complaining of the taste of his wine or the fit of his patent-leather boots.
He wore a low-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue ribbon around it which had a white anchor embroidered on it in front; nobby short-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest, all trim and neat and up with the fashion; red-striped stockings, very low-quarter patent-leather shoes, tied with black ribbon; blue ribbon around his neck, wide-open collar; tiny diamond studs; wrinkleless kids; projecting cuffs, fastened with large oxidized silver sleeve-buttons, bearing the device of a dog's face English pug.
He sprang up, smothered, out of regard for the age and sex of Pollyooly, some language suggested by the occurrence, and with a terrific kick sent the fragments of the chair flying across the studio. Then he howled, and holding his right toes in his left hand, hopped on his left leg. He had forgotten that he was wearing thin, but patent-leather, shoes.
And on the top of the small hill Mr. Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness upon his head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air. "For God's sake, Quin, get up, and don't be an idiot," cried Barker, wringing his hands; "we shall have the whole town here." "Yes, get up, get up, man," said Lambert, amused and annoyed. "I was only fooling; get up."
"Sene, are you cold?" asked puzzled Dick. She was warmly wrapped in her little squirrel furs; but he felt her quivering upon his arm, like one in an ague, all the way home. About eleven o'clock that night her father waked from an exciting dream concerning the best method of blacking patent-leather; Sene stood beside his bed with her gray shawl thrown over her night-dress.
And now Betty discovered, on seeing him more closely, that he was not a humble-bee at all, but just a very corpulent old gentleman dressed in quite an antique fashion, with black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, black patent-leather pumps with large buckles, a most elaborate black velvet waistcoat with yellow and orange stripes across, and a coat of black velvet to correspond with the breeches; while in his hand he carried a very elegant three-cornered hat, which, out of respect to her, he had removed from his head at the first moment of their meeting.
He wore a light check suit of the very latest fashion, a rosebud adorned his button-hole, and he tapped the toe of his highly-polished, patent-leather boots with the point of a silver-mounted cane. "Hallo!" he exclaimed; "what the dickens d'you want to keep a chap waiting so long for? I can tell you my time's more valuable than yours. Look here!
The room is mirrorless. Very well, then. Either I must use the patent-leather of your little shoes, or perhaps you will lend me one of your large eyes. Of the two, I'd rather have the eye. There's more room." "Sorry the line's engaged. Shah I call you?" "If you please. My pet name is Birdie, short for Bolingbroke. Meanwhile, may I have a nail? Only one little nail?"
The flight of years adds only deeper creases in the multitude of fine wrinkles, and increasing difficulty in hoisting his tiny, patent-leather foot up on his plump knee. The second tenor leans toward him in a way to make another man anxious about his watch, but the second tenor is as honest as the day. He is only "blending the voices." He works in the bank.
He would remember the boy who had come to him, cold and wet, from the depths of a mountain stream, the boy who had run miles in the early morning to warn him of the approach of the terrible Lukens, the boy whom he had called his only friend. He would see me dignified by a tail coat and beautified by a mauve tie, a white waistcoat and gleaming patent-leather shoes.
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