streets. For the most part they bore the unmistakable stamp of
the American college. They had that confident poise which is
easily brought from the athletic field. Moreover, their clothes
were quite in the way of being of the newest fashion. There was
an air of precision about their cravats and linen. But on the
other hand there might be with them some indifferent westerner
who was obliged to resort to irregular means and harangue
startled shop-keepers in order to provide himself with collars of
a strange kind. He was usually very quick and brave of eye and
noted for his inability to perceive a distinction between his own
habit and the habit of others, his western character preserving
itself inviolate amid a confusion of manners.

The men, coming one and one, or two and two, flung
badinage to all corners of the room. Afterward, as they wheeled
from time to time in their chairs, they bitterly insulted each other
with the utmost good-nature, taking unerring aim at faults and
riddling personalities with the quaint and cynical humour of a
newspaper office. Throughout this banter, it was strange to
note how infrequently the men smiled, particularly when
directly engaged in an encounter.

A wide door opened into another apartment where were
many little slanted tables, each under an electric globe with a
green shade. Here a curly-headed scoundrel with a corncob
pipe was hurling paper balls the size of apples at the head of an
industrious man who, under these difficulties, was trying to
draw a picture of an awful wreck with ghastly-faced sailors
frozen in the rigging. Near this pair a lady was challenging a
German artist who resembled Napoleon III. with having been