CHAPTER III     

 WEBSTER'S dreams of bliss had, with very slight variation, come true as per schedule.     

W

       In Salt Lake City he abandoned the beefsteak on his damaged eye for two businesslike leeches, which quickly reduced the nocturne effect around his orb, enabling him, the third day, to saunter forth among his fellowmen. By the end of the week he was a being reincarnated, and so he packed a huge new wardrobe-trunk with his latest purchases and journeyed on to Denver. Coincident with his arrival there, we again take up the thread of our story.     

       One hour after his trunk arrived the gentleman from Death Valley might have been observed standing before a cheval glass looking long and earnestly at the reflection of his middle-aged person, the while he marked the fit of his new raiment.     

       Let us describe these habiliments, alleging as an excuse for dwelling with emphasis upon the subject the fact that John Stuart Webster was all dressed up for the first time in three long, labour-ridden years, and was tremendously glad of it. Hark to this inventory. There were the silken hose and underwear next his well-scrubbed skin; then there was the white pleated linen shirt—a shirt so expensive and exquisite that Mr. Webster longed to go somewhere and shoot a game of billiards, in order that thus he might have an excuse to remove his coat and exhibit that shirt to the gaze of the multitude. His collar irked him slightly, but he had been assured by the clerk who sold it to him “that it was strictly in vogue.” His gray silk Ascot tie was held in a graceful puff by a scarfpin with a head of perfect crystal prettily shot with virgin gold; his black afternoon coat enveloped his wide shoulders and flanked his powerful neck with the perfection of the epidermis on a goose in the pink of condition; his gray striped trousers broke exactly right over his new “patent leather” shoes. The tout ensemble, as the gentleman himself might have expressed it had he possessed a working knowledge of French (which he did not), was perfect.     

       He “shot” his cuffs and strutted backward and forward, striving to observe his spinal column over his right shoulder, for he was in a transport of delight as truly juvenile as that on 

 Prev. P 15/249 next