A sumptuous expanse of linen exhibited itself between the lapels of his low-cut waistcoat, and an inch of bediamonded breastpin glittered there, like an ice-ledge on a snowy mountain side.

He had a steady, blue eye and a dissipated, iron-gray mustache.

This personage was Mr.Ephraim Watts, who, following a calling more fashionable in the eighteenth century than in the latter decades of the nineteenth, had shaken the dust of Carlow from his feet some three years previously, at the strong request of the authorities.
The "Herald" had been particularly insistent upon his deportation, and, in the local phrase, Harkless had "run him out of town." Perhaps it was because the "Herald's" opposition (as the editor explained at the time) had been merely moral and impersonal, and the editor had always confessed to a liking for the unprofessional qualities of Mr.Watts, that there was but slight embarrassment when the two gentlemen met to-day.

His breakfast finished, Harkless went over to the other and extended his hand.

Cynthia held her breath and clutched the back of a chair.