John Brown's body lies--mould--
. . . . . we go march . . . . on."
CHAPTER XII
JERRY THE TELLER
At midnight a small brougham stopped at the gates of the city hospital in
Rouen. A short distance ahead, the lamps of a cab, drawn up at the
curbing, made two dull orange sparks under the electric light swinging
over the street. A cigarette described a brief parabola as it was tossed
from the brougham, and a short young man jumped out and entered the gates,
then paused and spoke to the driver of the cab.
"Did you bring Mr. Barrett here?"
"Yes, sir," answered the driver; "him and two other gentlemen."
Lighting another cigarette, from which he drew but two inspirations before
he threw it away, the young man proceeded quickly up the walk. As he
ascended the short flight of steps which led to the main doors, he panted
a little, in a way which suggested that (although his white waistcoat
outlined an ellipse still respectable) a crescendo of portliness was
playing diminuendo with his youth. And, though his walk was brisk, it was
not lively. The expression of his very red face indicated that his
briskness was spurred by anxiety, and a fattish groan he emitted on the
top step added the impression that his comfortable body protested against
the mental spur. In the hall he removed his narrow-brimmed straw hat and
presented a rotund and amiable head, from the top of which his auburn hair
seemed to retire with a sense of defeat; it fell back, however, not in
confusion, but in perfect order, and the sparse pink mist left upon his
crown gave, by a supreme effort, an effect of arrangement, so that an
imaginative observer would have declared that there was a part down the
middle.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220