The gray hat, which the colonel held in his hand, was horribly greasy round the rim.

The malacca cane, from which the polish had long disappeared, must have stood in all the corners of all the cafes in Paris, and poked its worn-out end into many a corruption.

Above the velvet collar, rubbed and worn till the frame showed through it, rose a head like that which Frederick Lemaitre makes up for the last act in "The Life of a Gambler,"-- where the exhaustion of a man still in the prime of life is betrayed by the metallic, brassy skin, discolored as if with verdigris.

Such tints are seen on the faces of debauched gamblers who spend their nights in play: the eyes are sunken in a dusky circle, the lids are reddened rather than red, the brow is menacing from the wreck and ruin it reveals.

Philippe's cheeks, which were sunken and wrinkled, showed signs of the illness from which he had scarcely recovered.