Richland beacon., 1888-03-17
THE NAN IN BROWN

In that section of F fifth avenue, New
York, where trade has commenced to rub
shoulder. with fashion most impudently,
stands brown stone mansion. Brown
stone mansions are not SO uncommon on
Fifth avenue that this fact alone should
distinguish any special house from its
neighbors, but there is that about this
house itself that performs the Office most
effectively. Its closed blinds, which are
never by any chance ajar; its weedy
door-yard, where the grass runs to seed
in summer and the snow lies piled in
winter; the marks of inattention about
the unswept steps and the unburnished
door.metal, combine to give it special
physiognomy in which one may read its
character. 1t is in houses such as this
that rich men live without the refining
or embellishing influence of female
companlonship, served by servants, to
whom the masters negligence communi-
Gates itself until it becomes sort of dry
rot that affects the roof that shelters
them rs well as themselves.
If, knowing this house familiarly, you
were to meet its master in the street for
the first time, you would know him.
whether his house has come to look like
him or he to look like his house, shall
not attempt to decide. In as much as
man built of flesh and sinew and bone
can resemble pile Of masonry. mortar,
and timber, the resemblance exists. He
is brown man, to begin with. His hair
and whiskers, which are weedy in their
growth, are kept that tint by dye, which
you may see him sometimes applying to
them out of little bottle when his re-
Election in the convenient mirror af-
forded by p!ate-glass shop window
arouses suspicion in him that his ju-
venility needs reinforcement. Hisc ,othes
are brown. There is faint shade of
umber in the pallor of his sunken face,
in which his hazel-brown eyes sparkle
like cats under bushy brown brows.
And above all he carries with him the
same air of neglect that would make a
more chcaply dressed man look scedy,
but which lends to him, as it does to his
house, the suggestion of subtle and per-
vading decay
AT certain hour every afternoon this
man appears on Broadway. He comes
into view suddenly, as if he had taken
form out of the air, or been shot up
through trap from below the founda-
tions of the town. TIE person does not
exist, within my knowledge at least, who
has ever seen him start from anywhere
upon his daily promenade. l have my
self stood at street corner watching the
crowd, with clear view of it for blocks
up and down, and been sure that he was
no part OF it, when all at once, there he
was before me. walking with one
shoulder little higher than the other,
and slight shuttle to his steps, as if the
dry-rot had commenced to palsy his feet,
and his right hand in his pocket where
he keeps his bottle of hair-dye. In this
style he shamb!es up from Urion Square
to DelmonicD's.
Wherever he may begin his afternoon
round, he ends it at his own door. He
ends it, too, with the same prestidigita-
torial swiftness that marks his coming.
have noted him from the club window,
and have seen him as went by. standing
on his doorstep, with his face lecring
covcrtly at the street, and in the flashing
Of q glance have lost him. 1t was as If a
gust of wind had blown him through
his kcyhoie, or the firm stone had parted
to engulf him. ha never seen him
make a movement to open the door him.
self; i have never seen the door open or
shut. All that l ha seen is that he
was there, and was not there, between
the drawing of two brcaihs. Perhaps
the brown old man-servant, who watches
ut the grilled window like a
prisoner behind the bars, may have
omething to do with it. At any rate it
. done.
When the gaslight attrac@ to Broad
way its usual nightly crowd, he is there
again. lie passes through DelmonicO's
like phantom; speaking to no one, and
recognizing no one: and being spoken