“Monsieur Roselyn, with his dark angry eyes and cruel mouth, certainly looked wicked enough to be a pirate.”

Born in 1853 in a brothel on Dauphine Street in New Orleans, Amadeo K. Roselyn barely cracks five feet, and describes himself in his diary as “smallish and yellowish and withered looking.” He has the arrogance of a talented young man who succeeded against the odds, and the hot temper of someone who was frequently mistaken for easy pickings in dangerous sections of the Quarter.