Signor Antonio Valentino
As they reached the front of the house they heard the voice of the announcer:
"Signor Antonio Valentino."
They saw Mary Wayne dexterously crowding her way forward; they saw her look, gasp, utter a faint cry and freeze into an attitude of horror.
And then they saw Bill Marshall, wearing a whole-hearted grin of delight, rush forward to greet his friend, the eminent artist from Italy.
Signor Valentino was short and dark. He had a flattened nose that drifted toward the left side of his face. He had a left ear that was of a conformation strange to the world of exclusive social caste, an ear that—well, to be frank, it was a tin ear. He had large, red hands that were fitted with oversize knuckles. His shoulders rocked stiffly when he walked. His eyes were glittering specks.
"H'lo, Bill, yo' old bum," said the signor.
"Kid, I'm glad to see you. You look like a million dollars."
And Bill seized Kid Whaley's hand, pumped his arm furiously and fetched him a mighty wallop on the shoulder.
The signor did, indeed, look like a million dollars. He wore the finest Tuxedo coat that could be hired on the East Side. His hair was greased and smoothed until it adhered to his bullet head like the scalp thereof. There was a gold-tipped cigarette between his lips. The bow tie that girded his collar had a daring pattern of red. In a shirt front that shone like a summer sea was imbedded a jewel whose candle-power was beyond estimate, so disconcerting was it to the unshielded eye. A matchless brilliant of like size illuminated a twisted finger. His waistcoat was jauntily but somewhat sketchily figured in dark green, on a background of black.