Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/270

 coolness, turning from side to side his uncovered curly head, rolling his gaze relishingly about. As he stood there another head, a big close-cropped, bullet-hapedshaped [sic] head, raised itself slowly above the top rail of the entrance stairway behind him, a florid, round moon-shaped fleshy face came above the rail and its small, brown good-natured eyes peered at him. Then there came into view a neck, which would have been long if it had not been incredibly thick, nearly as thick as the big head. The owner of the head moved cautiously, like an over-grown boy playing blindman's bluff. He was a man huge in every dimension, wrapped in a very thin, very white toga with a very broad crimson border. As he trod softly round the end of the railing he showed foot-gear of pale green buckskin, much like Wellington boots, but shorter, with a gold crescent on a little gold chain dangling from the top of each. He was followed by an enormous fawn-colored dog; heavily built, square-jawed, short-haired, which moved as silently as he. Padding noiselessly up behind the absorbed gazer he slapped him boisterously on the shoulder. The smaller man turned round.

"Lucius!" he exclaimed, "what good luck brought you?"

"Precisely to find out," said Lucius, "what whim led you in here. I saw you entering,