On the
landing above a gas lamp was burning, and opening a door
immediately facing the stair the stranger conducted me into a
barely furnished and untidy room.
The atmosphere smelled like that of a pot-house, the odours of
stale spirits and of tobacco mingling unpleasantly. As my guide
removed his hat and stood there, a square, gaunt figure in his
queer, caped overcoat, I secured for the first time a view of his
face in profile; and found it to be startlingly unfamiliar. Seen
thus, my acquaintance was another man. I realized that there was
something unnatural about the long, white hair, the gray face;
that the sharp outline of brow, nose, and chin was that of a much
younger man than I had supposed him to be.
All this came to me in a momentary flash of perception, for
immediately my attention was riveted upon a figure hunched up on
a dilapidated sofa on the opposite side of the room. It was that
of a big man, bearded and very heavily built, but whose face
was scarred as by years of suffering, and whose eyes confirmed
the story indicated by the smell of stale spirits with which the
air of the room was laden. A nearly empty bottle stood on a
table at his elbow, a glass beside it, and a pipe lay in a saucer
full of ashes near the glass.
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