He invested his own personal habits with the millinery.

He looked a picturesque figure with his blond moustache, a little silk-lined brown cloak thrown carelessly over his shoulder, a gold-headed cane, and a brisk jacket half ecclesiastical, half military.
He had interested Charley Steele, also he had amused him, and sometimes he had surprised him into a sort of admiration; for Brown had a temperament capable of little inspirations--such a literary inspiration as might come to a second-rate actor--and Charley never belittled any man's ability, but seized upon every sign of knowledge with the appreciation of the epicure.
John Brown raised his hat to Charley, then held out a hand.
"Masterly-masterly!" he said.

"Permit my congratulations.

It was the one thing to do.

You couldn't have saved him by making him an object of pity, by appealing to our sympathies." "What do you take to be the secret, then ?" asked Charley, with a look half abstracted, half quizzical.