The rain was excuse for a long raincoat with high collar which buttoned under his nose, and a cap which pulled down to his eyes, and an umbrella which masked him from every direct glance.

Thus abetted and equipped he came, after a taxi ride and a walk, into his grandmother's street.

It was as seemingly deserted as on that tumultuous night when he had left it; and on this occasion no figures sprang out of the cover of shadows, shooting and cursing.

He had calculated correctly and unmolested he gained the pawnshop door, passed the solemn-eyed, incurious Isaac, and entered the room behind.
His grandmother sat over her accounts at her desk in a corner among her curios.

Hunt, smoking a black pipe, was using his tireless right hand in a rapid sketch of her: another of those swift, few-stroked, vivid character notes which were about his studio by the hundreds.