He was one of those blossoms of male humanity that seem as expressly designed by nature for the ornamentation of ladies' boudoirs, as an Italian greyhound: he had precisely the same graceful, shivery adaptation to live by petting and caresses.

His tastes were all so exquisite that it was the most difficult thing in the world to keep him out of misery a moment.

He was in a chronic state of disgust with something or other in our lower world from morning till night.
His profession was nominally that of architecture and landscape gardening; but, in point of fact, consisted in telling certain rich, _blase_, stupid, fashionable people how they could quickest get rid of their money.

He ruled despotically in the Follingsbee halls: he bought and rejected pictures and jewelry, ordered and sent off furniture, with the air of an absolute master; amusing himself meanwhile with running a French romance with the handsome mistress of the establishment.

As a consequence, he had not only opportunities for much quiet feathering of his own nest, but the _eclat_ of always having the use of the Follingsbees' carriages, horses, and opera-boxes, and being the acknowledged and supreme head of fashionable dictation.