He stared a while at the bronze effigy
surmounting that vainglorious column. Then he drew a long breath and
went into the hotel.
A capable Swiss youth responded to his demand to be shown to his room,
seeming to consider it not strange that Americans in Paris should now
and then return to their rooms.
At the doorway of a drawing-room that looked out upon the column the
Swiss suggested coffee--perhaps?
"And fruit and fumed ... boiled eggs and toast and all that meat and
stuff," supplemented Bean firmly.
He tried one of two doors that opened from the drawing-room and exposed
a bedroom. His, evidently. There was the little old steamer trunk. He
discovered a bathroom adjoining and was presently suffering the
celestial agonies of a cold bath with no waster to coerce him.
He dressed with indignant muttering, and with occasional glances out at
that supreme upstart's memorial. He chose his suit of the most legible
checks. He had been a little fearful about it in New York. It was rather
advanced, even for one of that Wall Street gang that had netted himself
four hundred thousand dollars. Now he donned it intrepidly.
And, with no emotion whatever but a certain grim sureness of himself, he
at last adjusted the entirely red cravat. He gloated upon this
flagrantly. He hastily culled seven cravats of neutral tint and hurled
them contemptuously into a waste-basket. Done with that kind!
He heard a waiter in the drawing-room serving his breakfast.
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