That this was such and such a woman, or that was such and such a man never led him into any of that gossip so common among club-men who are out of touch with the vital things in life. Even when he espied a friend in this mysterious flow of souls, there was only a transient flash of recognition in his eyes. When he wasn't in the tennis-courts, or the billiard- or card-rooms, he was generally to be found in this corner. He had seen all manner of crowds, armies pursuing and retreating, vast concords in public squares, at coronations, at catastrophes, at play, and he never lost interest in watching them; they were the great expressions of humanity. This is perhaps the reason why his articles were always so rich in color. No two crowds were ever alike to him, consequently he never was at loss for a fresh description.
To-day the Italian vender of plaster statuettes caught his eye. For an hour now the poor wretch hadn't even drawn the attention of one of the thousands passing. Fitzgerald felt sorry for him, and once the desire came to go over and buy out the Neapolitan; but he was too comfortable where he was, and beyond that he was expecting a friend.
Fitzgerald was thirty, with a clean-shaven, lean, and eager face, russet in tone, well offset by the fine blue eyes which had the faculty of seeing little and big things at the same time. He had dissipated in a trifling fashion, but the healthy, active life he lived in the open more than counteracted the effects. A lonely orphan, possessing a lively imagination, is seldom free from some vice or other. There had never been, however, what the world is pleased to term entanglements. His guardian angel gave him a light step whenever there was any social thin ice. Oh, he had some relatives; but as they were neither very rich nor very poor, they seldom annoyed one another. He was, then, a free lance in all the abused word implies; and he lived as he pleased, spending his earnings freely and often carelessly, knowing that the little his father had left him would keep a moderately hungry wolf from the door. He had been born to a golden spoon, but the food from the pewter one he now used tasted just as good.
"So here you are! I've been in the billiard-room, and the card-room, and the bar-room."