And men--ah, pitiful!--pitiful
the wretch whose hardihood has involved him in cruel and
unusual great gloss and unsheltered tailed coat. Any man in his
overcoat is wrapped in his castle; he fears nothing. But to
this hunted creature, naked in his robin's tail, the whole
panorama of the Avenue is merely a blurred audience, focusing
upon him a vast glare of derision; he walks swiftly, as upon
fire, pretends to careless sidelong interest in shop-windows
as he goes, makes play with his unfamiliar cane only to be
horror-stricken at the flourishings so evoked of his wild
gloves; and at last, fairly crawling with the eyes he feels all
over him, he must draw forth his handkerchief and shelter
behind it, poor man, in the dishonourable affectation of a
sneeze!
Piquant contrast to these obsessions, the well-known expression
of Talbot Potter lifted him above the crowd to such high
serenity his face might have been that of a young Pope, with a
dash of Sydney Carton. His glance fixed itself, in its benign
detachment, upon the misty top of the Flatiron, far down the
street, and the more frequent the plainly visible recognitions
among the north-bound people, the less he seemed aware of them.
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