He had asked for some of our printed forms, and the clerk was giving them
to him and explaining them. An obliged and agreeable smile was on his
face, and his eyes met those of the clerk with a sprightly look. (I have
known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in
the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare
honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to
be got by it.)
I saw, in the corner of his eyelash, that he became aware of my looking
at him. Immediately he turned the parting in his hair toward the glass
partition, as if he said to me with a sweet smile, ‘Straight up here, if
you please. Off the grass!’
In a few moments he had put on his hat and taken up his umbrella, and was
gone.