His feet were remarkably small, and his
clothes, in which light colours predominated, were visibly the work of a
French tailor: he was an American who still held the tradition that it
is in Paris a man dresses himself best. His hat would have looked odd in
Bond Street or the Fifth Avenue, and his necktie was loose and flowing.
Mr. Dosson, it may further be noted, was a person of the simplest
composition, a character as cipherable as a sum of two figures. He had a
native financial faculty of the finest order, a gift as direct as a
beautiful tenor voice, which had enabled him, without the aid of
particular strength of will or keenness of ambition, to build up a large
fortune while he was still of middle age. He had a genius for happy
speculation, the quick unerring instinct of a "good thing"; and as he
sat there idle amused contented, on the edge of the Parisian street, he
might very well have passed for some rare performer who had sung his
song or played his trick and had nothing to do till the next call. And
he had grown rich not because he was ravenous or hard, but simply
because he had an ear, not to term it a nose. He could make out the tune
in the discord of the market-place; he could smell success far up the
wind.
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