midnight
While such were the inmates of the anteroom , what picture shall we draw of the _ salon _ and its occupant ? A table was covered with books , a couple of fencing foils , a woman 's mask , and a profusion of letters ; a scarlet cloak , richly laced , hung over , trailing on the ground . Upon a slab of marble lay a hat , looped with diamonds , a sword , and a lady 's lute . Extended upon a sofa , loosely robed in a dressing-gown of black velvet , his shirt collar unbuttoned , his stockings ungartered , his own hair -LRB- undressed and released for a brief interval from the false locks universally worn -RRB- waving from his forehead in short yet dishevelled curls , his whole appearance stamped with the morning negligence which usually follows midnight dissipation , lay a young man of about nineteen years . His features were neither handsome nor ill-favoured , and his stature was small , slight , and somewhat insignificant , but not , perhaps , ill-formed either for active enterprise or for muscular effort . Such , reader , is the picture of the young prodigal who occupied the apartments I have described , and such -LRB- though somewhat flattered by partiality -RRB- is a portrait of Morton Devereux , six months after his arrival in town . The door was suddenly thrown open with that unhesitating rudeness by which our friends think it necessary to signify the extent of their familiarity ; and a young man of about eight-and-twenty , richly dressed , and of a countenance in which a dissipated _ nonchalance _ and an aristocratic _ hauteur _ seemed to struggle for mastery , abruptly entered .