As I turned from the door, I could scarcely avoid laughing aloud at the figure before me. He stood opposite a large mirror, his hat on one side of his head, one arm in his breast, and the other extended, leaning upon his stick; a look of as much ferocity as such features could accomplish had been assumed, and his whole attitude was a kind of caricature of a melo-dramatic hero in a German drama.
“Why, O’Leary, what is all this?”
“Hush, hush,” said he, in a terrified whisper—“never mention that name again, till we are over the frontier.”
“But, man, explain—what do you mean?”
“Can’t you guess,” said he drily.
“Impossible; unless the affair at the saloon has induced you to take this disguise, I cannot conceive the reason.”
“Nothing farther from it, my dear friend; much worse than that.”
“Out with it, then, at once.”
“She’s come—she’s here—in this very house—No. 29, above the entre sol.”
“Who is here, in No. 29, above the entre sol?”