My astonishment
may be readily imagined when I beheld him in precisely the same
attitude as before - that is to say, upon his hands and knees.
I was yet puzzling over this phenomenon when he again raked out
the Panama on the end of the hunting-crop he carried, dusted it as
before, looking about him the while with a bewildered air, and
setting it firmly upon his head, came down the path. He was a tall
young fellow, scrupulously neat and well groomed from the polish of
his brown riding boots to his small, sleek moustache, which was
parted with elaborate care and twisted into two fine points. There
was about his whole person an indefinable air of self-complacent
satisfaction, but he carried his personality in his moustache, so
to speak, which, though small, as I say, and precise to a hair,
yet obtruded itself upon one in a vaguely unpleasant way. Noticing
all this, I thought I might make a very good guess as to his
identity if need were.
All at once, as I watched him - like a bird rising from her nest
- the devoted Panama rose in the air, turned over once or twice
and fluttered (I use the word figuratively) into a bramble bush.
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