He was, even more than usual, absorbed in a semi-gloom of thought. It
was his birthday, he was twenty-six, and he had been married more than
nine years. Already, with his inherited dark temperament, he was
middle-aged in situation and feeling. He had been assistant to the
professor of philosophy and letters for three of those married years;
yes--he had been graduated when he was twenty-three. He arrived at an
entrance to the common that faced the row of houses where he had his
room, and saw that something unusual was in progress.
The front of his boarding house was literally covered with young men:
they hung over the small portico from steps to ridge, they bulged from
every window and sat astride of the dormer windows in the roof. Before
them on the street a camera had been set up and was covered, all save
the snout, by a black rubber cloth, backward from which projected the
body and limbs of the photographer.
The latter, Elim realized, was one of a traveling band that took
pictures of whatever, on their way, promised sufficient pecuniary
return. Here the operator had been in luck--he would sell at least
thirty photographs at perhaps fifty cents each. Harry Kaperton, a great
swell, was in his window with his setter, Spot; his legs, clad in bags
with tremendous checks and glossy boots, hung outward. On the veranda
were Hinkle and Ben Willing, the latter in a stovepipe hat; others wore
stovepipes set at a rakish angle on one ear.
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