"
"Good-night, then," said Respectability grudgingly.
"G'd-night."
The door closed, and with an ineradicable manner of weight and
consequence Respectability turned toward the waiting taxicab: a man
of, say, well-preserved sixty, with a blowsy plump face and fat white
side-whiskers, a fleshy nose and arrogant eyes, a double chin and a
heavy paunch; one who, in brief, had no business in that galley at
that or any other hour of day or night, and who knew it and knew that
others (worse luck!) would know it at sight.
All this P. Sybarite comprehended in a glance and, comprehending,
bristled like a truculent game-cock or the faithful hound in the
ghost-story. The aspect of Respectability seemed to have upon him the
effect of a violent irritant; his eyes took on a hot, hard look, his
lips narrowed to a thin, inflexible crease, and his hands
unconsciously closed.
And as Respectability strode across the sidewalk, obviously intending
to bury himself in the body of his waiting cab as quickly as possible,
P. Sybarite--with the impudence of a tug blocking the fairway for an
ocean liner--stepped in his path, dropped a shoulder, and planted both
feet firmly.
Immediately the two came together; the shoulder of P. Sybarite in the
paunch of Respectability, evoking a deep grunt of choleric surprise
and bringing the gentleman to an abrupt standstill.
Upon this, P.
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