Jocelyn by John Galsworthy

Nielsen sat at one of many little marble-topped tables outside a café. It was dark, and the lights of the street avenue shone dubiously on either side through the foliage of the lime trees. From the interior of the café, at his back, the dull clack of dominoes and the flap of waiters' slippered feet against the boarded floor came gently to his ears, with the occasional sharper sounds of men's voices. Through the widely-opened doors and windows stray whiffs of rough, black tobacco, and of garlic, made their way to his nose. The thin strains of harp and mandolin quavered drawlingly into the warm air from a _cantina_ lower down the street, and frogs croaked hoarsely in chorus from the bed of the dried watercourse under the bridge.

Nielsen sipped his coffee, smoking quietly. He leant slightly forward, with his shoulders squared, his knees apart, and the rim of his hat pulled forward on his high forehead.