The Dugdale Millions — page 59: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SIGNOR BARBERINI. 49 His companions at the table were most dissimilar, One was possibly forty or forty-five. His face, clean shaven, presented a singular blending of force and cunning, acuteness and subtlety, cruelty and char- acter. Huis eyes bore a shifty and haunted expres- sion, and had a curious trick of dropping before one’s gaze, and stealthily lifting to look; his nose was broad on top and pinched at the nostrils; his lips were thin and the lines of his mouth ragged; his chin sharp and pointed, though his jaw was square and angular; when his hat was off, a large, broad forehead, over which the skin was tightly drawn, out of all proportion to the rest of his face, was seen, and there was a strange depression on the top of his head. His face was not attractive. His hands were noticeable—long, white, slender hands, with tapering fingers, withal strong muscular hands, but the most noticeable of all, was his voice—soft, low, and gentle in tones. He was respectably clad in black. Rumor said he was a gambler, but as to that no one about the drinking-place was certain. The other was his junior by fifteen or twenty years. His appearance at first glance suggested that he was better than his surroundings—that he was accustomed to something above a Sixth Avenue barroom. He wore clothes in good taste, and modest colors of the latest fashion, with the air of one who was accustomed to them. Of easy manners, with handsome face, well knit and graceful figure, there was a certain persistent suggestion of a lost refinement. Nothwithstanding all this, the man of the world would have preferred to have withheld than to have given confidence to this young man. He too had the same shifty, haunted expression in his eyes, and in addition an alertness which apparently took the form of constant suspicion always on guard. Evidently in his old age Signor Barberini was not choice as to his associates. Comicboclk C© 3