Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 96: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MAKING A PROMISE. 87 CHAPTER X. MAKING A PROMISE. ‘“Ceesar,’’ said Mr. Forrest, late the same night, or rather, early the next morning, to the bent old negro who had been his valet for years, ‘‘do for heaven’s sake put these rooms in order; they look as though a cyclone had struck them.’”’ The man gazed solemnly around him as if, until that in- stant, the idea that all was not quite as it should be, had not occurred to him. ‘*Yes, sah,’’ he answered, touching the spot on his head where the woolly top-knot had once been. ‘‘Things don’t look ’xactly ’spectable ’bout heah; dat’s a fac’, sah.”’ Dick had been entertaining a few convivial friends at supper, as might have been presumed from appearances. The apartment consisted of four rooms, separated from each other by bamboo portieres, the largest being used in the double capacity of card and reception-room. It was furnished in oriental style, with low, inviting looking divans, covered with Turkish embroideries and rugs. The windows, facing on the street, were latticed and draped heavily. In fact, most of the light which was shed over this quaint den, either by day or night, was given bya large, wrought-iron lamp of unique design, and a few dim, religious tapers in mysterious holders, which graced the four corners of the room. A narghil, more for ornament than use, stood on a stand at the head of one of the divans, and a grotesque monster, mounted on a bronze jar, emitted clouds of incense through his horrid, wide-open jaws. (E(0) im