Even to my short-sighted eyes they appeared quite common: in fact they looked like grooms.

In spite of their vulgar appearance, however, one was nice looking in a fresh boyish way; the other seemed merely depraved.

Oscar greeted me as usual, though he seemed slightly embarrassed.

I resumed my seat, which was almost opposite him, and pretended to be absorbed in the game.

To my astonishment he was talking as well as if he had had a picked audience; talking, if you please, about the Olympic games, telling how the youths wrestled and were scraped with strigulae and threw the discus and ran races and won the myrtle-wreath.