Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Henry Ransome, seemed, so far as very brief observation enabled me to
judge, quite a different person from his much younger, as well as much
bigger and brawnier associate. I did not doubt that, before excessive
indulgence had wasted his now pallid features, and sapped the vigor
of his thin and shaking frame, he had been a smart, good-looking chap
enough; and there was, it struck me, spite of his reputation as "a
knowing one," considerably more of the dupe than the knave, of the fool
than the villain, in the dreary, downcast, skulking expression that
flitted over his features as his eye caught mine intently regarding
him. I noticed also that he had a dry, hard cough, and I set down in
my own mind as certain that he would, ere many months passed away, be
consigned, like scores of his fellows, to a brandy-hastened grave.
He indicated my presence--proximity, rather--to Wyatt, by a nudge on
the elbow, whereupon that respectable personage swung sharply round,
and returned my scrutinizing gaze by one of insolent defiance and
bravado, which he contrived to render still more emphatic by thrusting
his tongue into his cheek. This done, he gathered up a coil of rope
from one of the seats of the Cross-House, and said: "Come, Harry,
let's be off. That gentleman seems to want to take our pictures--on
account that our mugs are such handsome ones, no doubt; and if it was
a mildish afternoon, I shouldn't mind having mine done; but as the
weather's rather nippy like, we'd better be toddling, I think." They
then swaggered off, and crossed the Ferry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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