He wore a sort of livery, which must have been put away for years.

A young man had been measured for the coat which now displayed three deep creases across a bent back.
"Attention--attention!" he said, in a warning voice, while he scraped a sulphur match in the hall.

"There are holes in the carpets.

It is easy to trip and fall." He lighted the candle, and after having carefully shut and bolted the door, he led the way upstairs.

At their approach, easily audible in the empty house by reason of the hollow creaking of the oak floor, a door was opened at the head of the stairs and a flood of light met the new-comers.
In the doorway, which was ten feet high, the little bent form of the Marquis de Gemosac stood waiting.
"Ah! ah!" he said, with that pleasant manner of his generation, which was refined and spirituelle and sometimes dramatic, and yet ever failed to touch aught but the surface of life.