Richard started to follow the man who, in company with a red-headed florid-faced man that carried about with him one hundred and fifty pounds of superfluous flesh, was going down Broadway.
The man pointed out by the boy had a light beard, a high nose and sharp eyes. Richard recognized him as an Albany assemblyman.
“That looks totally unlike the man I pictured from your description,” Richard said, crossly, as they followed the two men into the Hoffman House.
“Well, his face looks like the other fellow, only the other one had black whiskers, and this here one’s is red.”
“Bleached, doubtless,” Dick said ironically.
“Well, he looks the same, anyway,” the boy protested, as Dick seated himself in the bar-room and made a pretense of reading a letter.
The two men went to the bar and ordered drinks, and as the thinner one (they were neither on the lean order) raised a glass to his mouth, Richard started and looked more closely at him.
Surely his face looked familiar then!
“I am tired; you can go to your office now and come to me in the morning,” Dick said to the messenger, who gladly started off.
Richard sat there with serious face watching the man at the bar whom the boy had pointed out, until he and his heavy companion went out; then Dick fell into deep thought.