Valentine Corliss, having breakfasted in bed at a late hour that
morning, dozed again, roused himself, and, making a toilet,
addressed to the image in his shaving-mirror a disgusted
monosyllable.
"Ass!"
However, he had not the look of a man who had played cards all
night to a disastrous tune with an accompaniment in Scotch. His
was a surface not easily indented: he was hard and healthy,
clear-skinned and clear-eyed. When he had made himself
point-device, he went into the "parlour" of his apartment,
frowning at the litter of malodorous, relics, stumps and stubs and
bottles and half-drained glasses, scattered chips and cards, dregs
of a night session. He had been making acquaintances.
He sat at the desk and wrote with a steady hand in Italian: