In Arcady and Out

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901. Excerpt: ... A PROFESSOR OF ROMANCE. He was a very small man, and he looked miserably weak and thin. His sallow cheeks bristled with three days' growth, and his meek black tie was badly frayed, and had slipped up over the top of his dirty shirt-collar. He wore a shiny old frock-coat, black, with purple-brown shadows, that was too short in the sleeves and too tight in the back, and a silk hat that had long lost its decency. He stood on the pavement before the courtyard of the Gare St. Lazare, biting his mourning finger-nails and trembling with the cold. Such was M. Pitou. Suddenly out of the station behind him there came a young Englishman, swearing, as is their custom, but softly, under his breath. He was tall and blonde, with broad shoulders, and with the fresh colouring which is the unique beauty of these islanders. He was dressed in a riskilycoloured suit of tweeds and carried a monstrous walking-cane, with which he lashed the air. Evidently something had angered him. M. Pitou watched him with interest, his little black eyes beading with awakened interest in life. The Englishman walked three times aimlessly past him, casting puffs of evil-smelling smoke in his face, but without intentional offence. M. Pitou, watching him covertly, his plan of action already forming in his breast, noticed at last a new expression in his eyes. He followed their direction with anxiety. He was hungry and tired, and in no mood for a lengthened promenade. A white-aproned waiter had come from the big cafe at the corner and was unpiling the chairs stacked beneath the awning, setting them in tidy rows before the marble-topped tables. The islander paused, then walked across the pavement and sat down outside the cafe, signalling the waiter with his walking-cane. M. Pitou, without further wast...