The houses right and left were hidden behind the black masses of flowering shrubs.

Willems had the street to himself.

He would walk in the middle, his shadow gliding obsequiously before him.

He looked down on it complacently.
The shadow of a successful man! He would be slightly dizzy with the cocktails and with the intoxication of his own glory.

As he often told people, he came east fourteen years ago--a cabin boy.