F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 20
head in his pale, bony, and freckled hand, and mutters to himself:
"I will have revenge. His gray hairs shall not save him--my name is
George Mullholland!"
Here and there, on sofas arranged between the great windows, sit
faded denizens, reclining languidly in dresses of various bright
colors, set off with gaudy trinkets, and exhibiting that passion for
cheap jewelry so much in vogue with the vulgar of our self-plumed
aristocracy--such as live at fashionable hotels, and, like Mrs.
Snivel, who has a palace on the Fifth Avenue, make a show-case for
cheap diamonds of themselves at breakfast table. Beside these
denizens are men of every shade and grade of society. With one sits
the distinguished lawyer; with a second converses the
grave-demeanored merchant, who seeks, away from the cares of his
domestic hearth, to satisfy his curiosity here; with a third, the
celebrated physician sips his wine; with a fourth, the fatherly
planter exchanges his saliant jokes; with a fifth, Doctor Handy the
politician-who, to please his fashionable wife, a northern lady of
great beauty, has just moved from the country into the city, keeps
up an unmeaning conversation. In the lefthand corner, seated on an
ottoman, and regarding the others as if a barrier were placed
between them, are two men designated gamblers. Your Southern
gentleman is, with few exceptions, a votary of the exciting vice;
but he who makes it his profession severs the thread that bound him
to society. And there sits not far from these members of the
sporting fraternity, the tall, slender figure of a man, habited in
the garb of a quaker. He regards everything about him with the eye
of a philosopher, has a flowing white beard, a mild, playful blue
eye, a short but well-lined nose, a pale oval face, an evenly-cut
mouth, and an amiable expression of countenance. He intently
watches every movement of the denizens, and should one accost him,
he will answer in soft, friendly accents. He seems known to Madame
Flamingo, whom he regards with a mysterious demeanor, and addresses