"
"I should think so," exclaimed Julian. "Poor Marr's face was as utterly
different from yours, Valentine, as darkness is different from light."
"No, no; it is not the eyes of the gentleman," the landlord continued,
leaning forward through his window, and still violently scrutinizing
Valentine,--"it is not the eyes. But there is something--the voice, the
manner--yes, I say there is something, I cannot tell."
"You are dreaming, my friend," Valentine calmly interposed. "Now, Julian,
what do you want to do?"
Julian came forward and leant his arm on the counter.
"I am the poor gentleman's great friend," he said. "You must let me see
him."
The landlord held up his fat hands with a large gesticulation of refusal.
"I cannot, sir. To-morrow they remove him. They sit on the poor
gentleman--"
"I know,--the inquest. All this is very hard upon you, an honest man
trying to make an honest living."
Julian put some money into one of the agitated hands.
"My friend and I only wish to see him for a moment."
"Monsieur, I cannot. I--"
Julian insinuated another sovereign into his protesting fingers. They
took it as an anemone takes a shrimp, and made a gesture of abdication.
"Well, if Monsieur is the friend of the poor gentleman, I have not the
heart, I am tender-hearted, I am foolish--"
He disappeared muttering from the window, and in a moment appeared
at a door on the left, disclosing himself now fully as a degraded,
flaccid-looking, frouzy ruffian of a very low type, flashily dressed,
and of a most unamiable expression.
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