The importunities of peroxided young ladies who, from the vantage of their little kiosks, besought him to buy chocolates, local views, frozen roses—or to solve the mystery of a certain walking-stick which in adept hands would transform itself into a useless pen—he almost rudely ignored.
“Phtsss!” he exploded aloud. “The man’s a coward—an incompetent.”
He gripped the railings of the Pier and gazed fiercely out to sea, while the wind played cornfields in his long grey hair.
A photographer, ever alert for fresh victims, approached and commenting upon the favourable condition of the elements, suggested that the gentleman might feel disposed to have a “likeness” taken.
“I do not feel disposed,” returned Eliphalet, curtly.
“I have some most amusing backgrounds,” continued the photographer, in no wise rebuffed, and proceeded, to describe how, in his professional opinion, Eliphalet would prove a suitable subject to place his head through a hole in a large canvas upon which was painted an astonishingly-clad individual riding on a rocking-horse. He wound up with the words, “Causes roars of laughter.”
Eliphalet spun round and fixed two pin-points upon his frock-coated persecutor.
“Are you seeking to amuse yourself at my expense?”
“No, sir—I assure you.”
“Then go away.”