The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 391: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXIX MR. SYCAMORE WHILE this scene was passing between three or four o’clock in the afternoon at Bayswater, Christian Ashton was pursu- ing his way along Piccadilly. In a few minutes he entered a fashionable hotel, and inquired of the waiter if the Honour- able Mr. Talbot Sycamore was within. The response was in the affirmative, and our young hero was conducted up- Stairs to an apartment where the object of his visit lay stretched upon the sofa smoking a cigar. Nothing could exceed the freedom and ease or the lux- urious languor of that state of abandonment which charac- terized Mr. Talbot Sycamore’s posture. His head reposed upon the cushion at one end of the sofa, his feet reclined upon the high part of the sofa at the other extremity; one mo- rocco-shipper had fallen off, the other just hung on to the tips of his toes. His elegant flowered silk dressing-gown was all flowing open, and he inhaled the fragrance of his cigar with the comfort of one who appeared not to have a single care in the whole world. The Honourable Mr. Talbot Sycamore was a little past thirty years of age. He had auburn hair, which he wore very long, and which seemed to curl naturally, large whiskers of a somewhat redder tint, blue eyes, and a tolerable good- looking countenance. He was tall, slender, and well made, but had a rakish, dissipated, devil-may-care appearance, which was visible enough even beneath that easy fash- ionable languor that now as it were invested him. The waiter withdrew, and Christian remained alone with this gentleman. | Mr. Sycamore, taking his cigar from his mouth, waved it with a sort of graceful negligence in the direction of a chair, — 3l4 Gomichbooks (E(0) y